Never have the course of two Indian cricketers run parallel in a manner as remarkable as in the case of Sourav Chandidas Ganguly and Rahul Sharad Dravid. With Ganguly recently retired and if things don’t improve much, Dravid very likely to follow in his footsteps, this is a good time to reflect on their respective careers, both remarkable in their own right, but make even more fascinating a study when viewed in contrast with each other, something of the lines of the plot of many Jeffrey Archer novels.
Their rise to the Indian team prior to their Lords debut ran parallel. Dravid served out an extended apprenticeship in the domestic circuit as Karnataka’s mainstay evoking frequent comparisons from the local press to Vishwanath and Brajesh Patel. Ganguly, on the other hand was never a major run machine in domestic cricket like Dravid and Laxman and came into his own on the international stage only. Unlike Dravid again, who was serious about cricket from his schooldays, he simply came from a family of club cricketers and took to the game seriously only after he was selected for the disastrous tour of
The face of the Indian batting had always been that of a Bombayite. Right from Vijay Merchant to Dilip Sardesai to Sunil Gavaskar to Sachin Tendulkar to the much hyped Rohit Sharma, the city of
Their Lords debut was not the ideal platform for a youngster looking to ease into the team. On a fast, swinging track they came together with
The Kolkata Test in 2001 was, in a sense the turning point in many ways for both, for Ganguly as a captain and for Dravid as a batsman. Hitting his way out of a slum in the most dramatic of matches must have given Dravid a lot of confidence as his star soared thereafter and he gradually came out of the shadows of his distinguished peers to become
Many believe that had Ganguly not been made the captain, he would have achieved a lot more as batsman. It is probable for the biggest problem with Ganguly’s batting was that it did not develop after a point. While Dravid and Sachin have constantly evolved as batsmen, made various adjustments to their game; Ganguly, once he has been sorted out, never managed to overcome his deficiencies.
It is universally believed that Dravid was a clearly inferior captain to Ganguly. I am not entirely sure. Ganguly introduced a lot of self-belief in his team and helped us get over out timid chokers tag and that was what we needed then. But, he was never a great tactician. He was easily rattled as a captain and many a times let the momentum slip through out of a lack of imaginative captaincy. Dravid, was a much more collected man on the field. His captaincy on the field always has more of method to it than Ganguly’s who was tactically always on the whimsical side especially with respect to his handling of spinners and part-time bowlers. But what Ganguly lacked in on field tactics, he more than made up through the way his communicated with his players and allowed them to flourish. Dravid tended more to lead by example through his own performances and commitment but despite the bulk of his runs never really had the aura of a leader.
While Ganguly left on high, scoring significant runs against the top team in the world in his farewell series, Dravid has so far doggedly stuck around in the midst of calls for his head. In the past month, many a sports journalists have made a living out of stories on the lines of “the Wall crumbling.” His century at Mohali notwithstanding, despite being full of character and a testimony to his tenacity, I have a feeling Dravid will not have a swan song end to his career. If there is one thing that he has lacked in his otherwise illustrious career, it is the sense of timing that his longtime colleague and once co-debutante has always had.
