Rahul Dravid’s words after 2007 WC exit made us feel alive again, reveals Irfan Pathan
Irfan Pathan has labelled Rahul Dravid as the captain he enjoyed the most playing under and recalled his words of encouragement after India crashed out after the 2007 World Cup. Pathan further added that Dravid asked them out for a movie after the disappointing performance in the World Cup.
While Sourav Ganguly was credited for making India a competent unit overseas after taking over the captaincy in the aftermath of the 2000 Match-fixing scandal and MS Dhoni for achieving every single dream for an Indian cricket fan out there, Rahul Dravid’s tenure doesn’t get discussed in the same breath as others. Arguably one of the finest cricketing minds of his time with an uncanny ability to hold down the fort, India had a considerable amount of success under him - none better than the series win against England in England - but the dark cloud of 2007 dominates talks.
Bursting that myth, Irfan Pathan, who had some of his best years under the Karnataka stalwart, shared a tale of India’s 2007 World Cup exit and how Dravid made things lighter for the younger cricketers with his words of support. The Baroda cricketer also went on to add that he “loved playing under Dravid” for his clear communication with the youngsters.
“Many know that Dada was my first captain and he backed me a lot. Anil Kumble could’ve captained a lot more games for India. MS Dhoni has achieved everything. But, I loved playing under Dravid, because there was proper communication under him,” Irfan told Sports Tak on Instagram Live.
“Many don’t speak about Dravid’s captaincy, we created a world record while chasing targets under him. Three days after we were out of the 2007 WC, we all were sitting in a room deeply dejected. That’s when Dravid called us and we went to watch ‘300’ movie.”
MS Dhoni was a young and upcoming star then and subsequently took over the reins of the Indian side during the inaugural edition of the T20 World Cup - a tournament during which Dravid stepped down from captaincy from all formats. Irfan revealed that Dravid had words of praise for him and Dhoni after the 2007 Windies debacle.
“After some time, he said to me ‘Irfan, this is not the end of the world, you played a lot of cricket and will play more in future as well, it was bad that we lost, you and Dhoni will go on and play a lot of cricket for India’. His words made us feel like we are not dead but still alive,” he added.
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