Dravids one-days

After the coda,there is always a quiet space for reflection. After playing his last one-day international in Cardiff,Rahul Dravid the batsman met the philosopher in him. In an interview to The Indian Express,he said,You never get a chance to choose how you make your debut and you never get a chance to choose how you will finish. Its life. What Dravid left out is what happens,what you choose to do,between the first and the last match,that gruelling self-actualisation of greatness that takes place in the middle,on every hallowed cricket ground,in every nondescript session at the nets.

Thats how a 23-year-old who had a disastrous beginning to his ODI career in Singapore and Sharjah in 1996 went on to master the skills and style of the 50-over batsman. He eventually sloughed his Ranji skin to make 1999,which began with an unbeaten 123 in New Zealand,the transformative year of his ODI career. There was no looking back: he became the mainstay of the middle order,the safe hands behind the stumps and part of the trinity that buoyed Team India. And the stats sing it in full 10,820 runs from 343 matches,the seventh highest runs in one-dayers; the second fastest 50 off 22 balls by an Indian,and the highest partnership of 331 runs,with Sachin Tendulkar. When the quintessential Test player metamorphosed into the one-day virtuoso,something extraordinary happened,an unusual give-and-take. It freed his game in Tests,as he himself reminisced recently,while the shorter format gained the inherent artistry and élan that originally belonged to his innings.

Rahul Dravids recall to ODI and T20 during the England tour was an afterthought,a desperate move to squelch the English bowling attack and secure a bruised Indian team. It,in the end,turned out to be one last glorious chance to witness the Dravid-ian aesthetics in one-dayers,to record in every cricketing brain those three consecutive sixes in his first and last T20 match,to say proper,tearful goodbyes. Rahul Dravid the one-dayer retires just as he played the game.