A Personal Goodbye

For the last decade, if Sehwag was dismissed within the first five overs (which was often), I would just turn off the TV. His opening partners weren't always the most attractive - Bangar, Chopra, Das, Jaffer, Gambhir - and one-drop was usually the man who went by the moniker "The Wall", which means that, for hours, one had to endure some splendidly dull Test match batting.

I never liked watching Dravid. Somehow, even with that blemish-free technique, that picturesque backlift, those cuts and arcs, those flowing cover drives, that deadly pull (oh, what a sight that was - straight from shoulder to the ground, and across the ropes in a flash!), his style never appealed to me. It was the minimalist freakishness of Sehwag, the wristy sweetness of Azhar, Laxman and Mark Waugh, and the sheer theatre of Brian Lara in full flight that I loved more. I like effortlessness, I like a certain nonchalance, I like a measure of subtlety. I'm a sucker for drama, I have a fondness for exuberance. I like the man who throws an occasional tantrum, I like the combustible character, I like the batsman who, when the mood strikes him, wants to put every ball beyond the ropes. (I still hate Ricky Ponting, but that's a subject matter of another post.)

Dravid could be effortless on occasion - I remember more of that side of him in the one-dayers - but he revelled in the struggle. Someone remarked, I forget who, that he has never seen a top batsman find the fielder more often that Dravid. That struggle for runs was his home turf, that was his comfort food, that kept him going. That's what made him bat like none in his generation on pitches that were either deadly difficult or downright dangerous.

Maybe it took effort for him to be effortless.

He was never nonchalant - always intense, always pushing the bar, admonishing himself, correcting himself, egging himself on - batting seemed to take a lot out of him. That he could keep up this intensity and this pressure on himself and bat in the same vein, come rain or runs or neither, for days together, was the Dravid Paradox. Seems almost apt that a man of his nature had an over-sweating problem.

Dravid's batting was drama, yes, but not in the same sense as one of Azhar's madcap bouts of sizzling artistry or Lara's knife's edge balancing acts. He was a Tarkovsky, while the others were Scorseses - the drama had no punchlines, it boiled over slowly, often going round and round in circles. He was never exuberant, in person, in batting style, in celebration. I can't remember him throwing a tantrum or combusting. It was not that he wasn't inventive or incapable of strokeplay. There was simply a decidedly old-school measuredness about his batting. He was always deliberate.  If he was ever spontaneous, he hid it very well.


My crassness, my disdain for gentlemanliness, my Joker-like penchant for the theatric, all meant that Dravid never made me watch him. Still, I was glad he was there. I was sure that if I switched on my TV (or logged in to cricinfo) an hour later, he would be there, resisting away, on a reassuring 19 off 45 balls. And, I could sense, that that score would swell, slowly, surely, into another pondering Dravid epic.

I will miss his reassuring presence.