Dravid: Will Take Half an Hour to Explain Why India Played Poor; England Deserve No.1

Rahul Dravid is like the rose amongst the thorns as far as the Indian cricket team in England is concerned. A man who takes his cricket seriously was certainly not cutting corners when he laid into the reasons with one poignant statement. The Man of the Series was gracious enough to acknowledge England’s success deserving of the no.1 Test team.

Rahul Dravid

Dravid has been the lone soldier for India as the rest of the line up toppled over one another. Three Test centuries from four Tests in the India England series is no ordinary feat, matching the late Sir Don Bradman’s record, as Dravid notched up thirty-five Test centuries to go past Sunil Gavaskar’s record of thirty-four Tests.

However, that Dravid has not been backed by consistency from at least another couple of players in the Indian cricket has come to hurt India rather humiliatingly, resulting in a 4-0 whitewash with the defeat at the Oval in the fourth Test with the no.1 Test team title already relinquished. And it must have been agonizing for Dravid to continue to keep the fires burning even as his team mates showed little inclination other than to burn the house down.

Rahul Dravid though tried to put a brave face as he picked up the Man of the Series award adjudged by Andy Flower, the England coach, for the Indian team. When Michael Atherton, the former England captain, quizzed Dravid on why India had failed as poorly as they had, Dravid was at his wittiest best and yet batting forthright as well.

Dravid is no one to try and add colour to a black and a white story. When Atherton put that question to Dravid, he responded rather frankly that it would take a half hour. His response drew laughter, lightened the gravity of the question. But his short quip also pointed out that the problems in the Indian cricket ran deeper than the Indian captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, would care to elaborate in the media.

This is not to suggest that there is necessarily disharmony. But clearly there are lessons that have been forgotten when Gary Kirsten was the Indian coach and problems when players are unwilling to look at factors such as the IPL and approach a fair balance in the scheme of things which would have perhaps minimized some of the injury contentions that have come up in the series.

That Dravid knows there is more than one simple explanation why India have gone from being hailed as the top Test team for almost two years to now be at the receiving end of such a horrific series result. The problems though will needed to be sorted out only when one has had a honest look at things. When Dravid asked for half hour, he was not only deflecting the question not wanting to dwell into factors under the intense glare of the media but also, he was essentially suggesting that the Indian cricket team had problems that could not be resolved overnight, which is perhaps the most realistic way to look at things given the number of factors that have resulted in this situation that the team finds itself.