Whenever someone talks about unsung heroes, the first name that pops up in my mind is that of Rahul Dravid. The man has been reduced to being a shadow of the other cricketing giants. He’s been termed as a slow coach, a ball-eating monster and what not. He’s borne the brunt of it all with his golden silence, and his willow has spoken for him promptly.
There wasn’t even a twitch on the face of a certain Dr. Vijay Mallya, as the legend went under the hammer during the 2011 IPL auctions. It seemed as if the poetic pulls, the classic cuts and the divine drives that oozed out of Dravid’s timber had been shoved into oblivion.
Dipped in new colours, the IPL 4 campaign for Dravid began with panache. The knock of 35 against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) that came at a strike rate of nearly 120, and his 38 against the Delhi Daredevils was peppered with shots that had impeccable class written all over them.
If we rewind and take a look at his performance in the previous edition, he’d blazed past the rest of the so-called blistering batsmen with 256 runs with an average of 28.44 that came at a strike rate of 128.64. In the second season, he’d piled 271 runs with an average of 22.58 at a strike rate of 115.81. And the inaugural edition was enough to shut those critics up. 371 runs at a strike rate of 124.50 averaging a healthy 28.54.
To top it up all, he now features on the elite list of cricketers who’ve scored 1000+ runs in the zippiest format of the game. Another feather to his cap, this milestone came about in the match against the King’s XI Punjab. His IPL record now reads 1007 at an average of 26.50 in 47 matches. The 13th batsmen to have scaled this peak, he joins Suresh Raina (1487), Sachin Tendulkar (1406), Adam Gilchrist (1329), Jacques Kallis (1325), Gautam Gambhir (1240), Rohit Sharma (1217), Kumar Sangakkara (1145), Mahendra Singh Dhoni (1141), Matthew Hayden (1107), Yusuf Pathan (1052), Virender Sehwag (1032) and Sourav Ganguly (1031).
The saddest part is that, while Sehwag basked in glory for having achieved the same feat a couple of days back, Dravid doesn’t even feature anywhere in the news. As has always been the case, almost all his milestones get overshadowed by something or the other, and just in case there’s nothing else to overshadow him, he is plain ignored. Not that he gets affected by the spotlight or the lack of it, but pushing him behind the curtain every time isn’t a fair thing to do.
People who’ve always enjoyed the sadistic pleasure of playing critics just seem to vanish into thin air every time Dravid’s bat makes some noise. While he is ignored by the selection committee for reasons best known to them, “The Wall” silently continues to make his presence felt. It is this gracefulness, gentlemanly attitude and composure that probably all his fans need to learn from him to cope up with the million critics who seem to crop up from every nook and corner.
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