One Weird Innings

It’s tea on the fourth day of the First Test between India and South Africa at Chepauk as I begin this piece. India has just been dismissed for 627 and Sehwag’s triple ton overshadowed what was a strange Rahul Dravid innings.

He came in to bat at his customary number three position with the score at a more than comfortable 213. Sehwag had been going strong and Jaffer’s supporting knock had just concluded. Thus began an innings which in some aspects is a below par, sub standard and almost abysmal innings. But, in some other aspects, Dravid’s innings was a commendable one.

From the start, it was clear that playing a supportive role to the on fire Sehwag would be the right thing to do. In order to do that, all Dravid needed to do was to ensure that Sehwag got the majority - but not too much - of the strike. He had to ensure that Sehwag had complete control over his innings and could play his natural game. He had to ensure that the team’s run rate was kept in a decent, acceptable position. Unfortunately, Dravid got severely bogged down. He got into such a thick, seemingly impenetrable shell. Occasionally, he would turn the strike to Sehwag, and it was only fortune that ensured that Dravid did not often take that last ball single to retain strike. It was as if Dravid was scared to score. In the majority of his innings, Dravid seemed highly insecure at the crease. He always looked like he didn’t want to play a single attacking shot, over a large part of his innings, he did not even attempt to play attacking strokes. It seemed like Dravid had gotten himself into a situation where the risk taken by playing even the cover drive was as much as one of those upper cuts over the slips. It’s bad enough if one is not able to execute the intended stroke. But to see what I believe is an extremely low level of confidence from one of the modern greats go so low so as to not let him even attempt a few strokes is first scary, then disappointing.

There are many ways to look at this innings. Maybe Dravid just wanted to spend some time at the crease. Maybe he wanted to get the old feel and touch back. One issue that has to be mentioned is that if Sehwag had not been going like that at the other end, it would have put the Indian team in a horrible situation. Then again, maybe everything is always evened out.

It was clearly evident that Dravid was in horrible form. He had crawled along in an innings down under recently. But the one thing that everyone has to acknowledge and appreciate in Dravid’s innings, and his career is his perseverance. Many of us have always associated Dravid with grit, determination, perseverance and related terms. This innings showed how much determination this man actually possesses. To be in such a patch of horrible form that you can’t even play an attacking stroke and bat for a long time, scoring at a petty strike rate and going on to score a hundred takes some amount of focus and concentration.

Then again, it is also possible that Dravid recognised the perfect batting conditions and decided to make full use of the conditions to at least get some runs under his belt. Ultimately, runs did not seem to give Dravid all the touch he needed as was evident from his dismissal. There are many more assumptions one can make, but that was one weird innings.-BS