Great Wall

Rahul Dravid knows best his reasons for stepping down as India8217;s cricket captain. But his request, so rare among our cricketers, is a perfect moment to understand this critical point in a special career. Dravid gives up captaincy after an Indian Test series victory in England after 21 years and after wiping out some of the horror of the World Cup by taking the seven-match Natwest ODI series to the last match. The ledger, in fact, shows him well in his two-year stint as captain, two years in which he has stood remarkably dignified amidst some of the most unseemly coach-player clashes in Indian history. But, admit it, we find ourselves sneaking a longer look at his personal averages for these two years and we cannot but wonder if these too are not to be indicators of his performance as captain. Yet, it is in asking this question that Dravid8217;s extraordinary talent is revealed.

In summary, this is the comparison. As captain, his Test average is 44.51 and as non-captain it stands at 60.12. The collective wisdom gathered from this is not that captaincy has burdened his batting 8212; after all, he individually batted India in the series winner at Kingston last year. It is that, overall, he has not made the kind of contributions that he did earlier. In Sourav Ganguly8217;s long list of Test victories, Dravid8217;s contribution was more than any other batsman8217;s. That8217;s the kind of scale he has not sustained during his own captaincy. And that, in a nutshell, is the extraordinary standard to which Dravid has had to play his cricket. By refusing to change his manner of batting to the flamboyant demands of the star system, he has been seen to be as good as his last innings. Never mind those five double centuries, that away average of over 60, that second innings average of almost 50.

Word from the BCCI is that Dravid wants to be divested of captaincy so he can work on his game. In that request we find graceful 8212; and grateful 8212; acknowledgement that the standard set for him is

unusually high.