India's spirit, grace and genius

The truly great are not the men of wealth, of possessions, not men who gain name and fame, but those who testify to the truth in them and refuse to compromise whatever be the cost. They are determined to do what they consider to be right. We may punish their bodies, refuse them comforts, but we cannot buy their souls, we cannot break their spirits. Whoever possesses this invulnerability of spirit even to a little extent deserves our admiration.

- Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

There are a chosen few from across the realm, spanning time and diverse fields of function, who embody India's spirit, grace and genius. Rahul Dravid, the cricketer and sportsman, is also part of that pantheon which forms India's character.

We take from Dr. S Radhakrishnan's words and find that they describe Rahul Dravid rather accurately. Dravid was a lad who had a touch of class in everything he did; "he was supremely confident of his abilities," is how Sandeep Patil described him on encountering Dravid for the first time - Rahul continues to be so. He continues to do for India what he considers to be right, without compromising on the essential characteristics that define them.

We may have punished him in the past for lacking flair similar to his illustrious peers like Sachin, Sourav, Laxman or Sehwag; we may have refused him the same limelight we reserved for those who somehow shone brighter at that moment of combined brilliance; we may have flogged his fair name and dragged his legacy through mud swamps of selectorial incoherence - but we could not crush him. We could not divert him from doing what he is convinced about and therefore does best - carry India on his shoulders, across coals which burn holes in the line up of hopes, or through floods of disastrous collapses of character, to safety and reconstruction. Today he did it again, in the process registering his 27^th century and crossing 11,000 runs to stand not out, just a little over three hundred runs behind Ricky Ponting. Yet again he escorted an injured India out of the line of fire, and this time with a subtle difference, to which I'll return later.

MS Dhoni called right in the morning and chose to bat first. The pitch had a bit of moisture even though it was hard, and the groundsman suggested that it would do nothing much for the spinners on the first three days even as it would assist the paceman willing to bend his back on it. The consensus among the experts was that this was a pitch to bat first on. Herath and all-rounder Mathews were preferred, so Mendis had to sit out in a match against India.

Sehwag and Gambhir are indeed carrying their LOI forms into test matches as well. In an earlier blog, we had felt their opening partnership would be crucial to dull this Sri Lankan attack which happens to be more competent than earlier visiting attacks from the region.

Welegedara was willing to make best use of the fresh pitch, and he did so in an astounding manner.

Gambhir wasn't moving well. Lack of confidence was impeding his footwork. His front foot wasn't moving forward decisively and his dragging back foot looked a desultory participant in this match. Welegedara sensed it and had one staying straight. Gambhir played for swing and therefore outside the line. The inner edge crashed into the stumps. India was on the backfoot. Within no time at all Sehwag, who began in a usual blaze, brought his bat down a fraction late while trying to play across and around his partially forward front foot. The ball rapped him and there wasn't any doubt that India was in trouble.

More strife was to follow - two beauties...one truly beautiful from Welegedara moved back from just short of good length and in the combined fashion of Fanie de Viliers and Alan Donald roared through Sachin's gate. His blind spot, discovered by those two Saffers, had been exploited once again - Welegedara was king!

Laxman followed to replace Sachin. Dhammika Prasada swung into action and from a tall height made one cut back in. Laxman, at the start of his innings, has this angled-bat-hanging-outside-the-off-stump problem. Many balls have been bowled with the intention of finding its inner edge. Enough have succeeded in ricocheting onto the stumps from there to suggest that this is an uncorrected weakness of his distinguished career. India, however, were 32-4 at this stage, with Dravid on eight at the other end and Lanka's desire to register their first test win here suddenly very possible.

We have, in the past, seen Rahul dig in in situations like these. Biding his time, chaperoning the tail, wearing the opposition down, to uncoil and strike hurtingly many overs down the line. He would play according to the situation he was presented with, stricly adhereing to the principles of playing every ball on merit, till the opposition was outmanoeuvered by his resistance.

His methods sometimes earned him cruel tags - Rahul The Wall Dravid was often called sarcastically, Rahul Well Left Dravid. ^Rediff

Former Australia captain Ian Chappell said Dravid needed to be told that matches were won not by hours but by runs or wickets. He was nicknamed "The Wall" for his stonewalling ability, though fans also gave him the more taunting sobriquet of Rahul "Well Left" Dravid. ^Rediff

There was a brief moment when the confidence in his abilities was shaken. Devendra Prabhudesai quotes Vijay Lokapally of Sportstar as writing in the 31st May 1997 edition of the magazine - "Dravid admits that he needs to play more shots and that should help him take a step closer to developing into a complete batsman" - in his biography on Rahul Dravid titled The Nice Guy Who Finished First: A Biography Of Rahul Dravid ^{Rediff Books}.

According to Prabhudesai, Dravid's detractors within the BCCI of that time complained that "he thinks too much" as an explanation for dropping him from the ODI squad.

Sandeep Patil is quoted by Prabhudesai as saying that when Rahul Dravid approached him in 1997-98 for some suggestions, "That was the only time I saw him short of confidence. I told him that I would definitely let him know if I felt he was doing something wrong."

But he worked himself through, for he wanted to.

Even though people often mixed up his one-day and test cricket play without taking cognizance of, or understanding, the conditions in which his "culprit" innings in tests and ODIs were played in. It is an image he still finds difficult to shake off...but he soldiers on regardless.

BP Bam, a sports psychologist who helped Dravid in those days, in Prabhudesai's book tells us -

"Sports Psychology is useless unless the subject believes that it can help him. Rahul has always been a very serious and committed individual, and he had the courage to implement all that we discussed at the highest level of the sport, that too against quality opposition. The real challenge in cricket is to 'live' every ball. Every ball is a unique event in itself. No two consecutive deliveries are alike. A professional approach is one wherein the batsman concentrates on every ball and handles it on merit. He needs to start from scratch for every ball being bowled to him"

How well has Rahul Dravid been a pupil, to recieve and apply this wisdom! Today, the so-called "player who could not pierce" stands a mere 345 runs behind the more flamboyant Australian captain, Ricky Ponting, who is widely percieved to have been a strokemaker of astronomical proportions, and having played a test match lesser and still unbeaten on 177 fantastic runs!

BP Bam has more to say, "I explained to him that it was relatively easier to set a field to him since he was a classical, technically correct batsman. This was in the days when he was being accused of being unable to find the gaps in one-dayers. Middling every ball was his strong point, but trying to score only through strokes would get even a class batsman like him nowhere. Rahul then adopted the policy of modifying his strokes and placing the ball into the gaps instead."

Today, he played an innings which was youthful, energetic, piercing and supremely confident of its innate ability and qualitative dominance. He ran like the proverbial hare as well, rotating the strike, never allowing the bowler to keep bowling at one bat. It was an innings which would have pleased even those who doubted his ability to pierce the field.

He played all around the wicket, along the ground and in the air to send the ball soaring over into the stands. Not one shot appeared to go to a fielder...in fact they appeared to unerringly, with an uncanny imparted sense, repeatedly pierced the carefully set fields of Kumara Sangakkara and his bowlers.

If Prasada or Welegedara bowled straight or swung it in, Rahul leaned forward on his leading leg, and neatly clipped them to the mid-wicket bountdary.

Sometimes, when the ball fell a little short, he leaned back to cut wristily, or drive through unseen gaps in the covers off the backfoot.

If Welegedara or Prasada, drew him out, to lean far forward and drive away from his body on the off side, Rahul Dravid obliged us by playing that favorite and typical shot of his, needling the ball between fielders for four. That's a shot he has often played to strife. That's a shot he has often played to off side fielders...that's a shot which might have looked clumsy then and given tongue to such calumny as he had to endure.

Even the spinners tried it, Murali and Herath, to draw him out further and further outside and forward to off stump, all the while shortening their length; Dravid played them the way he wanted to, playing that wide drive to perfection, or quickly shifting his weight back onto his backfoot, leaning back to cut through the square field, if the bowler ended up too short in trying to entice him.

There was one shot off Murali I was enthralled by today...where Dravid quickly adjusted his forward stride to lean back, shift the weight to the backfoot and play an inside-out cover drive for four through a gap between two fielders placed specifically there.

Murali had shortened the length on sensing Dravid's forward motion and made the ball drift to the middle as it spun on to the leg, clearly with the intention to bounce off the pads into the stumps, or, if the batsman tried to readjust to flick it on the leg or play defensively, the forward short leg would come into play. Dravid was in such sublime touch that he was able to read the change, adjust quickly and accurately, and play inside out cover drive off the back foot to an off spinner who is a large turner of the ball!

Fantastic stroke in a fantastic innings thus far...certainly more to come tomorrow.

The other day, Sachin declared to one and all that he'd definitely play the 2011 World Cup. The media asked him if he would like to play. No one asked Rahul Dravid if he would like to play as well. So he stepped out and played an innings, taking every opportunity to make his own case, the way it has been all along.

He advanced today early in the innings, to a flighted ball from Herath to deposit him in the long-on stands for a text-book six. Everythig about his game is textbook...everything about his demeanour is classy. The innings was such that it completely overshadowed the efforts of the Sri Lankans and two strokemasters who played in good form - Yuvraj, who scored a grand 68, unaffected by spinners and highly selective outside the off stump tp pacers, before giving it away in two minds...credit to the wily Murali for befooling him but Yuvi showed he could play...and, Dhoni, who himself played a masterful knock of 110 in almost one-day fashion by taking singles and roating the strike! He too threw it away trying to clip a rising ball from Prasada over to third man, when he had an entire tomorrow waiting.

In fact that dismissal undid all the good work India did today...a little strange by Indian standards...counterattacking with grace, commonsense and style from a position of adversity. Not often would you have seen India down 32-4 in the eighth over of the day...all the big names back in the pavilion... and end the day just 15 short of 400 for the loss of two more wickets!

Rahul Dravid was in-charge of this curious drama too. There wasn't mad and furious slavering batting smashing the ball to all parts out of pique and anger, it was a carefully constrructed confident retaliation of great science and precision which never let the Lankan's realize the ultimate dimensions it would achieve by the end.

Lanka might have let slip a chance to win their first test by allowing India to score almost 400 runs in one day! They began well and played poor cricket subsequently. But they haven't knocked themselves out of it completely - They picked wickets when they really wanted them...at the top, then Yuvi and finally Dhoni at the end.

But if Harbhajan, Zak and co. hang along with Dravid tomorrow, Lanka will have a serious task on its hand. I'll look foward to Harbhajan and Mishra bowling on Day Five to them. It will be a gripping test of skills between the good spin bowlers and better Lankan batsmen, who could be under some pressure on Day 5.

Sri Lanka vs India 2009-10, First Test, Day One, Motera, Ahmedabad

Scorecard