A world without Wall

His departure is indeed a great loss to cricket,but the man he is I am sure he has timed it perfectly. When I met him first,the thing that really impressed me greatly wasnt his cricketing nous,but rather his understanding of life around him. Not to forget his natural tendency to care about everyone around him,his teammates,and the world in general.

He might have bid adieu to cricket,but trust me,he has so much more to offer to India as a country with whatever he does in his life from hereon,and trust me he will choose wisely.

It was a pleasure interviewing someone who has such a great understanding of himself. And Rahul harped on this fact repeatedly during our chat that,coming to terms with who you are is one of the most significant attributes a sportsperson needs to have to be successful. Because if you are confident of who you are,and your strengths and the weaknesses,then you do not let failure affect you.

Failure often helps you break the shell and release the raw talent from within. And thats what great players like Dravid believe in. Thats where coming to terms with yourself helps you embrace failure as a stepping stone. If not then you start judging yourself by each performance and the bigger picture gets overshadowed. Greats like Rahul dont get overawed by failure but instead get inspired.

And you can realise that in Dravid this realisation and maturity came about very early in his career,which explains his consistency over such a long period.

Admirable wisdom

I have always considered Dravid as a man of the world. He might be Indian but he doesnt belong just there. He has always been comfortable in adapting himself to wherever he is and embracing that community and their culture. That he said is an important element to be successful while playing abroad. And this is one advice Rahul told me he always gives the present generation of young cricketers. It is something that he regrets not having gotten an opportunity to do from a young age. Interacting with more cultures only broadens your horizons more,and helps you understand yourself better. Wisdom,like someone said,is to understand anything from different perspectives,and I can tell you Dravids wisdom is really admirable.

He believes that when a young cricketer is on tour,he shouldnt just focus on going and playing cricket in England or the West Indies but rather he should try to understand the culture and the place,and therefore accentuate his overall knowledge. No wonder,Rahul scored so many runs for India even overseas.

I always thought Rahul was a great leader. In fact I would put him in the same league as Clive Lloyd. Both were quiet achievers,and very undemonstrative on the field. There is this myth that only captains who are demonstrative on the field are good leaders. I dont think you need to really flail your arms constantly or have regular chats with your players on the field to be a great captain. Rahul was very calm,collected but always in control on the field,and he has a good record to show for it.

It is in fact a great strength for a captain to remain infallible on the field. There are two ways of captaining a team,one is to lead from the front with your actions and the other is to stay in the background and encourage your men with your words to great achievements. The greatest captains are those who bring out a perfect blend between the two. And Rahul just like Lloyd did that amazingly and astutely. He never backed down from a challenge and often led from the front with big runs in the middle.

Napoleon Bonaparte,the great French general,always said that in a war campaign,the ratio of success between psychological warfare and physical warfare was 2:1. That in the long run,the sword is always beaten by the mind. And Dravid is a great believer in that statement. He manages to vanquish the opposition with his mind.

All in the mind

With regard to the notion of him being obsessed with his technique,I would start by saying how surprised I am that people generally only talk about his persistence and his technique while describing him. I never thought those were his greatest strengths.

I think where Rahul stood apart from everyone else was his amazing mind control. His mental strength was amazing. His ability to stand amidst the ruins and still perform to the height of his capabilities was amazing. The best example was in England last year,when he performed miracles despite everything was crumbling all around him. And it is his mental control that has helped him perfect his technique,of which he is a perfectionist. It is this that has helped him face so many deliveries in his career,and focus for that long. Going into a shell is natural for everyone,but it is the manner in which he has come out of them that is remarkable. Rahul himself admits that his mind control is his greatest strength. He believes to play international cricket,you need to be reasonably fit,decently talented,and obviously have a strategy for every occasion and opponent. But it is how strong you are in the mind that defines how great or successful you will be. You call it obsession with technique; I instead call it a talent to take his game to the next level just on the strength of his mind.

And it is this lack of mental strength he believes that causes the disparity between successful cricketers at the shorter formats and those at Test level. He believes there is a place for all three formats. But he insists that Test cricketers stand a better chance at excelling at T20 cricket than vice versa,and that is because they lack the mental focus to withstand the pressures and vagaries in the conditions that they have to face at Test level for five long days. His philosophy is simple. Focus on the ones and the twos,and the fours and sixes will take care of themselves. Doing the simple things right,and strengthening your basics is the way to go.

He has an amazing record which will put him up as one of the greatest cricketers to have ever played the game. But he has a mind that is indeed a valuable asset,and which has lots to offer to world cricket in general.

Sports psychologist Rudi Webster worked with Clive Lloyds West Indian team,and more recently with top athletes such as Tiger Woods. He spoke to Bharat Sundaresan