Dravid opens up a new era in Indian cricket

By John Cheeran
In the beginning was the word, and then there was Rahul Dravid.
By conventional yardsticks Rahul Dravid has failed in the first innings of the New Delhi Test against Sri Lanka which is on at Feroze Shah Kotla now.
Skipper made only 24 before he fell to Muttaih Muralitharan. Dravid played some delightful strokes and appeared destined for a big knock.
But today more than the number of runs he scored it mattered when he chose to find them. It was a sacrifice skipper made for Team India’s cause.
I hail Dravid for his courage and attitude as a leader which, let me repeat forcefully, is in stark contrast to that of that successful, born-to-rule, Maharaj Sourav Ganguly’s.
Dravid has opened a new era in Indian cricket by stepping out to open the Indian innings with Gautam Gambhir. Once again, Dravid has showed he is not the one to run away from his responsibilities.
Team India had to find an opener as Virender Sehwag was hit by viral infection. And remember, Dravid himself was just recovering from a fever. Skipper could have easily bided his time to come down the order
It was Dravid’s call to assign one of the specialist batsmen to do the opener’s job. Dravid could have asked Yuvraj Singh, the man in form, to open the innings. Yuvraj, after all, had begun his first class career as an opener.
But Dravid spared Yuvraj the agony since he was making a comeback into the Test side.
Dravid could have ordered that genius from Calcutta, who has 15,000 runs in international cricket, to open the Test. After all, as they say, Ganguly has a great cricketing brain, he is the best tactician and he has a reputation to scare away rivals.
Sri Lanka’s front line bowlers should be running for cover at the prospect of bowling to Ganguly.
But Dravid chose to let Ganguly off.
Or is it because skipper has no trust in Ganguly?
What’s the point of pushing a man out of sorts and out of touch with reality to open Team India’s innings? Dravid knew the answer pretty well.
He has to do it. Thus Dravid broke the Indian belief that skipper is the Brahmin among the chosen eleven.
Here I want to point out what Dravid told his teammates when he took charge as Indian captain. “I will not ask you to do anything that I myself will not do.”
On Saturday, December 10, 2005, Indian skipper has lived up to his words and led by example. In the beginning was the word, and then there was Rahul Dravid.
Also read http://johncheeran.blogspot.com/2005/11/distance-between-dravid-and-ganguly.html