In a recent interaction with Ravichandran Ashwin, former India player and head coach Rahul Dravid revealed how a dropped catch at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) was the first indication for him that it was time to hang up his boots. “Yes, when I dropped the catch off your bowling of Michael Hussey at the MCG… It was one of the easiest catches I have ever dropped in my life,” he said to Ashwin on the spinner’s YouTube show ‘Kutti Stories’
“There are a lot of things in my career that I don’t remember but I can still remember dropping those catches. I don’t think that was the moment but I still think, you just know, right. I think I just knew at that stage that it was time to move on. I actually knew at the end of that series, but I didn’t want to take an emotional decision at that point of time. I thought… if this is my feeling and this is what I’m thinking at this point of time, and there was no cricket after that in terms of Test cricket. I said, let me go back home and actually spent three weeks in my house to be very sure that this is not an emotional decision but a decision I was clear about. So, I actually went home, spent 2-3 weeks with the family, and I realised that I didn’t want to go back and play,” he added.
The current Rajasthan Royals coach also said that when he saw the next crop of Indian players like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma coming up, he knew India was in safe hands and it was time for him to finally move on.
“I could see a lot of young players coming through. People like Virat and Rohit were coming. Virat just had a great series. Rohit hadn’t played a Test match in that series. Puji had gotten some runs but was coming back from an ACL injury. Rahane was doing really well. There were 4-5 guys coming through, and I could see that clearly that they were going to be the next generation of young Indian cricketers. I felt I had done my time, felt played as much as I could, and taken the team as far as I could. Obviously losing 0-4 in England and Australia doesn’t help either. Then you think as a senior player if you aren’t being able to make a contribution there, then you kind of think it’s time to move on,” Dravid said.
Dravid retired from Tests with 13288 runs and from ODIs with 10889 runs. He last played a Test match for India vs Australia in Adelaide in 2012 while his last ODI was against England at Cardiff in September 2011.
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