When a leading sponsor arranged a felicitation function here today to honour their Twenty20 World-Cup winning brand ambassadors, they didn’t quite forget a special, old associate. So, as Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh, RP Singh, Irfan Pathan, Robin Uthappa and Rohit Sharma received golden bats as mementos, Rahul Dravid stood by the side, joining the clapping chorus. The function ended with the Johannesburg heroes posing for a picture and Dravid quietly leaving the stage to the young guns. If the pressures of captaincy and the constant media glare were seen as the reasons for Dravid’s unwillingness to continue as India skipper, his first day at work as a ‘former skipper’ went as planned. While Dhoni & Co were still dealing with endless requests from photographers and journalists while exchanging smiles with the sponsors, Dravid was back in his room. But not before a few words of praise for the men in demand. “This team showed great vibes and intensity in South Africa. In any time of crisis, they put their hands up. They will inspire a generation of cricketers,” he said.Minutes later, Dhoni was back on stage for the media, this time to rub shoulders with rival skipper Ricky Ponting and unveil the trophy. He was once again smiling at the army of photographers after his door-to-dais journey took several minutes because of the heavy media attendance and encroaching autograph-hunters. With the sudden cut in public appearances, Dravid looked relaxed when he reached the stadium later. And very soon one came to know what the former skipper had planned during those turbulent days when he made the decision to quit captaincy. “I want to concentrate more on my batting,” was the one vital line in his letter to Board president Sharad Pawar, informing him about how handling both his batting and captaincy was getting tough. Today, much before Team India took the field, Dravid was padding up for a net session. For about 45 minutes, he batted against the net bowlers with the only man around wearing the India Blues being bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad — the former skipper’s old mate during his playing days. A pensive Dravid, sitting in the company of empty chairs, provided the perfect frame before all the attention was grabbed by the over-enthusiastic Twenty20 world champions who hit the ground. Gracefully shifting to the sidelines seemed like a conscious effort for home-boy Dravid in his own backyard. Another local boy Robin Uthappa seemed to be the flavour of the day here. Net bowlers walked up to him to shake hands and a few hugs were also exchanged. Dhoni, after hectic nets — batting plus wicket-keeping — looked jaded at the press conference. Dravid, along with others, meanwhile, waited in the bus for the skipper who dealt with questions on bowling-batting combinations, pressures of being world champions and his plan to deal with the mighty Aussies. There were two more men in the bus who knew the kind of workload and pressure Dhoni was under.
