Had insecurities whether I was good enough to play ODI after 1998 drop, admits Rahul Dravid

07/18/2020

Rahul Dravid has admitted that he had insecurities on whether he was a good enough ODI player after he was dropped from the ODI setup in 1998. Dravid also admitted that he always wanted to be a Test player, where he learnt not to hit the ball in the air from the coaches, contrary to ODI cricket.

Rahul Dravid’s cricketing career has always been filled with compliments for his steady batting in the Test format and his insecurities in the limited-overs format. His slower and more tactical batting was not what ODI cricket called for, with the Karnataka man even getting the drop in 1998 before the Cricket World Cup in 1999.

On the contrary, Dravid established himself as one of the best in Test cricket, where he went on to score 13,288 runs in 164 Test matches. Talking about his drop from the Indian team, Dravid recollected how he grew insecurities whether he was good enough or not in the ODI set-up following the drop.

“There have been phases in my international career (when I felt insecure). I was dropped from the ODI team in 1998. I had to fight my way back in, was away from the Indian team for a year. There were certain insecurities then about whether I’m a good enough one-day player or not because I always wanted to be a Test player, was coached to be a Test player, hit the ball on the ground, don’t hit the ball in the air, coaching like that,” Dravid told WV Raman on his show ‘Inside Out.’

However, the right-hander made his comeback into the Indian setup quite immediately and made a startling impact in the 1999 Cricket World Cup, where he ended up scoring 461 runs, which was the most in the tournament. Following Sourav Ganguly's reign as India's captain in the limited-overs format, Dravid was handed the job, where he went on to become one of the most integral parts of the Indian setup. But throughout his ODI career, Dravid admitted how he had worried whether he had the skills to time and hit the ball with the upscaling tempo.

“You sort of worry whether you had the skills to be able do it (in an ODI),” Dravi added.