Rahul Dravid’s Career Had Share Of Ups And Downs

Dec 8, 2020 at 5:15 PM

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Rahul Dravid’s Career Had Share Of Ups And Downs

Rahul Dravid, the former Indian batsman, ex-captain and currently head at National Cricket Academy, said his career wasn’t smooth sailing as everyone thinks as he had his share of ups and downs but the love of cricket saw him going forward and becoming one of the few batsmen who scored 10,000 runs in both ODIs and Tests.

Desh Apnayen Sahayog Foundation and Satya Vigyan Foundation hosted the third talk of TRUTH talks series with the distinguished guest speaker being former Indian batsman Rahul Dravid. The talk was anchored by Ayaz Memon, who is amongst India’s senior-most sports scribes.

Rahul Dravid
Rahul Dravid. Credits: Hindustan Times.

Rahul Dravid Had His Share Of Ups And Downs But Love Of Cricket Saw Him To Continue As A Successful Batsman

Rahul Dravid was asked how he engaged himself to continue as India’s premier batsman without much difficulty, he replied saying that no individual’s career ever is plain sailing and especially in cricket.

“I have had my share of ups and downs but I think what’s kept me going is just the love for the game and just trying to get the best of myself,” he explained.

Rahul Dravid
Rahul Dravid

Rahul Dravid also said that he believes in “coaching not just a cricketer but coaching a person” as head of NCA and previously as India U-19 and India A coach.

“In sports, you are put in the spotlight a lot and your failure is very public, as your success is as well and you need to deal with that. It is not easy at times, it sometimes makes you do things that you necessarily not very proud of and sometimes you learn from those things. It has become so much more competitive today that it has actually become harder for sportsman to have a normal life,” he added.

The former cricketer said that cricket has made him a distinguished person and playing the cricket sport has given him all kinds of emotions and experiences.

Rahul Dravid’s career too was marked with controversies the most infamous being his appointment as captain following ex-captain Sourav Ganguly‘s ouster and then coach Greg Chappell‘s fallout which led to Sourav Ganguly’s omission from the team. Later, the Prince of Kolkata had gone on record to state that Rahul Dravid didn’t have the courage to revolt against Greg Chappell then.

Rahul Dravid Felt Unfair That He Was Paid More Than Other Coaching Staff

Ayaz Memon also asked Rahul Dravid about the issue that surfaced after India winning the U-19 World Cup. Rahul Dravid expressed his emotions and mindset during that situation as he had felt disappointed and hurt that he got a higher prize amount than the rest of the support staff and he wanted a fairly equal division of the prize money.

He added: “We as support staff did our bit to create the environment and I felt that everyone had played their part and so I just felt a little unfair that I was being paid a little bit extra.”

Ayaz Memon
Ayaz Memon

When asked about guiding principles in his personal and professional life, Dravid said: “Being honest to who I am and try being myself and recognize that you know I am only the custodian of the game for a short period of time and I need to try to leave the game at a better place when I am going to leave.”

India won the 2018 edition by defeating Australia by eight wickets in the final. At that time, they were under the guidance of Rahul Dravid, who was the head coach of the India A and India U19 men’s teams from 2015-2016 until August 2019. Under his coaching and guidance, the under-19 team was runners up at 2016 u-19 Cricket World Cup and were winners at 2018 u-19 Cricket World Cup.

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