Mr. Rahul Dravid

India tour of England 2011  (Full Coverage)
The Rahul Dravid journey in ODIs
Bangalore, Fri, Sep 16 2011 , by Saurabh Somani		Text Size

Rahul Dravid will be appearing in the final ODI of what has been an eventful journey.

[© Getty]

Dravid's ODI deeds might not be as famous as his Test ones, but there were many glorious moments.

[© AFP]

In a short while from when this is being written, Rahul Dravid will have played his final One Day International match for India. It's not been quite as stupendous a journey as the one he has been through in Test matches, but finishing as the seventh highest run-scorer ever in the format says that it's not been as much of a struggle in ODIs either. And certainly not as much as it's often made out to be.

Rahul Dravid had been knocking on the doors of selection for quite a while before he began his international journey in 1996. Knocking, in fact, is too mild a word. The door was fairly flying off its hinges after the hammering it received from the runs that the boy from Bangalore with the immaculate technique was piling on. So much so, that when the Indian squad for the Wills World Cup in February-March 1996 was announced with Dravid missing from the list, the Indian Express carried the headline - "Rahul Dravid gets a raw deal".

In some ways, nothing has changed from 1996 to 2011 for the man they call The Wall.

In Test matches, he has achieved lasting greatness, recognition and most important of all the universal respect of his peers. But in One Day Internationals, the Dravid method of batting has often come under attack - sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly, but mostly just borne of the shallowly researched opinion that 'Dravid is not suited to limited overs cricket'. The bald statistics say the man has so far amassed 10820 runs at an average a shade over 39 and a strike-rate of 71.16. The average is pretty good, the strike-rate is merely decent. It is not a strike-rate that would survive in the game as it has been for the past 2-3 years, or how it promises to be hence. But for the time that Dravid played the majority of his ODI cricket, it isn't as bad as it would be either. For instance, Inzamam ul Haq and Sourav Ganguly - two acknowledged greats in ODIs and contemporaries of Dravid - had strike-rates of 74.24 and 73.71. Jacques Kallis has one of 72.78 and he's still playing.

The story of Dravid's ODI journey though, is best examined when looking at his career in different phases, rather than with one all-encompassing stat.

When he began in 1996, Dravid seemed ill at ease with the grammar of limited-overs cricket. The technique was textbook, the balance was perfect, the shots were exquisite - but the runs simply wouldn't come quickly enough. For a while, it seemed as if Dravid might join the list of domestic wonders who had come a cropper in International cricket. His obvious talent though, meant that he was part of the Indian squad that toured England in the summer of 1996, even though his limited-overs performances had been barely adequate. The successful Test debut in England no doubt played its part in prolonging Dravid's ODI career too, but Dravid the successful Test batsman never rose above Dravid the struggler in ODIs. There were moments of brilliance - it was inevitable that there would be - with the six hit straight back over Allan Donald's head in South Africa in early 1997 being the most memorable, but they didn't come often enough. Sure enough, Dravid found himself out of the limited-overs side in 1998, making sporadic appearances only. His record until then read thus:

Rahul Dravid in ODIs: Debut (1996) to November 1998

Matches	Innings	Not Outs	Runs	Highest	Average	Balls Faced	Strike Rate	100s	50s
65	58	4	1709	107	31.65	2692	63.48	1	12

It wasn't something his staunchest fans could point at with any pride. A re-tooling of his game was in order. And, not surprisingly, it was his Test match exploits that led the way to a new Dravid emerging in ODIs too. The renaissance began with India's tour of New Zealand in early 1999, where Dravid was unstoppable in the Tests. He carried that form into the ODI series as well and emerged India's best batsman in both forms at the end of the tour. The earlier inability to pierce gaps or rotate the strike in ODIs was gone, and from then on, Dravid almost began a second career as an ODI batsman. True, he still never reached the run-scoring speed of a Virender Sehwag or a Shahid Afridi - but that was not his job either. His was the role of the sheet anchor in a team that had many stroke-makers. While earlier, his scoring had been too slow even for a sheet anchor, post-1999, Dravid scored more than enough runs at an acceptable strike-rate, to command a place in the ODI side on his batting alone. In the 1999 World Cup, he was the tournament's top-scorer and one of those short-listed for the Man of the Series award too. Until the beginning of the 2003 World Cup, Dravid's ODI stats were thus:

Rahul Dravid in ODIs: January 1999 to January 2003

Matches	Innings	Not Outs	Runs	Highest	Average	Balls Faced	Strike Rate	100s	50s
131	122	15	4472	153	41.79	6344	70.49	7	30

Notice how well the stats correspond to the manner in which one would want the anchor to function. A high average and a strike-rate that - while slower than normal - wasn't slow enough to set the team back. The next few years of his batting were his golden age, with his Test match form hitting a zenith. However, in the great deeds that he accomplished over five days, it is often forgotten that the next few years were also Dravid's best as an ODI batsman. Most Indian batsmen hit great form in the 2003 World Cup, and while Dravid didn't score as many runs in this edition as he had done in 1999, his batting too contributed to India's good run. The off-field turmoil with the Greg Chappell imbroglio later on, didn't impact Dravid on-field, and neither did the captaincy. In fact, until he gave up the captaincy after India's tour of England in 2007, it was easily Dravid's best phase as an ODI batsman.

Rahul Dravid in ODIs: February 2003 to September 2007

Matches	Innings	Not Outs	Runs	Highest	Average	Balls Faced	Strike Rate	100s	50s
131	123	21	4353	105	42.68	5746	75.76	4	39

A combination of Dravid's average and strike-rate over these three phases illustrates his evolution as a batsman well. For the purpose of comparison, the product of the batting average and batting strike-rate is taken as a single measure and compared with the existing measure across all matches played in the relevant periods. The difference between Dravid's combination of average and strike-rate and the overall period combination of the average and strike-rate is a very good indicator of how far above or below the average Dravid's performance was.

	RD Ave	RD St.Rate	RD Combination	Period Average	Period St. Rate	Period Combination	Percentage Difference
Debut - Nov '98	31.65	63.48	20.09	29.92	79.50	23.78	-15.52%
Jan '99 - Jan '03	41.79	70.49	29.46	29.72	79.15	23.52	25.27%
Feb '03 - Sep '07	42.68	75.76	32.33	29.88	81.72	24.42	32.38%

Note: RD denotes Rahul Dravid's figures.

The table clearly shows Dravid's initial struggles in the ODI format, with his overall performance significantly below average. Given that the overall figures include those of the tail-end batsmen who have batted in the period, the minimum that a top-order batsman should have is 20% above the norm. Dravid did that in his second phase, and in his final phase, transformed into a very good limited-overs batsman indeed.

After that, for reasons that have still not been made clear, Dravid resigned from the captaincy. The man himself had too much dignity to assign blame on any quarter for his (then) sudden move, and what was left was only speculation. It is no secret that being captain of the Indian cricket team comes with a whole set of off-field pressures, and perhaps that is what got to Dravid eventually. Mentally, he just didn't seem to be the same man. That incidentally, was also in the middle of his horrendous run in Tests. For a man who had so dominated bowling attacks all over in the past few years, it seemed incredible that Dravid was suddenly a fumbler, and it does not take a great leap of logic to speculate that something gave way in the mind that had been as much of a fortress as his technique had been. Australia came touring in October 2007, and after just 6 ODIs against them - in which he admittedly showed the afore-mentioned wretched form - Dravid was dropped, seemingly for good from the limited-overs side.

He was recalled for a brief period in September 2009 - the recall being as unexpected as the dropping - only to be dropped again, before the selectors decided that they once again had to turn to the one man who had never said 'no' to any task asked of him by recalling him for the current ODI series. And they were not let down. Dravid did not say 'no' this time too. However, he did say 'not any more after this'.

It was the only way he would have known how to react: not turning his back on his team, while ensuring at the same time that there would no more indignities suffered by being recalled suddenly and being dropped just as suddenly without a farewell note, without an explanation about why he was recalled and why he would not be needed. It is a different matter that given his immense service to the team, this was a basic courtesy that ought to have been extended to him. As had happened before, Rahul Dravid was still getting a raw deal.

When he retires from all forms of the game, most people will cherish the images of Dravid in whites - battling for India, saving a match for India, leading India to victory. Along with those, I will also carry with me images of Dravid in Blue - two in particular.

In an ODI at Brisbane in 2004 and an ODI at Bristol in 2007, the quintessential Test batsman showed just how a quintessential one-day international innings ought to be played. In the first one, he scored 74 off 64 balls, hitting only four boundaries, but making such effective use of his time in the middle that off the 64 deliveries he faced, only 15 were dot-balls - including the delivery that dismissed him. He had scored off more than 76% of the deliveries he faced, and that is why even though he hit only four boundaries, he ended up with the highest strike-rate for India in a match that Laxman had hit a century and Tendulkar had hit 86. [Match Score-card]

The second ODI saw an even more remarkable performance. This time, off the 63 balls he faced there were 17 dot balls. His percentage of deliveries scored off was marginally lower at 73%, but in this innings Dravid the destroyer came to the fore. Eleven fours and one glorious six were smashed, and he ended up 92 not out. Sachin Tendulkar had been dismissed for 99 earlier, but there was a no-contest when it came to declaring who the player of the match was. [Match Score-card]

The man can bat in ODI cricket too, and quite spectacularly at that. He just needs to do it one more time now.