Truthful Tuesday | Rahul Dravid was a better captain than he is given credit for

By the end of the 20th century, the India cricket team had established for itself a core batting side, headed by Sachin Tendulkar, that was better than the nation had ever seen. Hence, the ‘golden era’ had begun. After Tendulkar’s ‘failure’ as a captain, Sourav Ganguly - strong-headed individual and great limited-overs batsman- was the natural selection for the leadership role. Under him, as former England captain Nasser Hossain puts it, the Indian team turned into a ‘nasty bunch’. Something that the world of cricket had never seen before. So Dada’s era of captaincy became a legacy and the ones that followed were compared to the one Ganguly had set up. Then came the era of MS Dhoni, that saw India lifting the first-ever T20 World Cup and the nations first World Cup title, in 2011, since 1983.

Following Ganguly’s controversial dethroning as captain, Rahul Dravid was put to captaincy and a whole new controversy had started over it. The Greg Chappell era was indeed a dark one in Indian cricket and many believe that Rahul Dravid’s captaincy was just an outcome of it, hence seen as Katelyn Stark treated Jon Snow. Perhaps, Ganguly would’ve remained captain if the fallout with Greg Chappell never happened. But whatever happens, happens for a reason. And this eventuality, of Dravid becoming the captain, was indeed one. Yes, we don’t talk about it the way we talk about the 'Ganguly-era', the 'Dhoni-era' and now the 'Kohli-era'. But that doesn’t take away the contributions of the ‘The Wall’ in Indian cricket. 

Sourav Ganguly was known to revolutionize what the word captain means in Indian cricket. Not only did he make them fierce but also revolutionized cricket in all senses. He made Virender Sehwag an opener and discovered the talent of MS Dhoni. In order to relieve Rahul Dravid of captaincy duties, following the 2003 World Cup, a 23-year-old Dhoni was incorporated to the side in 2004. Just six months into his career Dhoni became a familiar name as he smashed that famous 148 against Pakistan at Vizag in April 2005. But it was more on and off than it seemed. In fact, it was only under Dravid’s captaincy that Dhoni’s batting actually flourished. 

Meanwhile, Dravid also experimented and did well with tweaking his predecessor’s four-bowler theory. Ganguly believed in having a full-fledged batsman in the lower down the order and opt for a mere four bowlers down the order. But Dravid had something else on his mind and implemented his own theory of how India needed its bowlers to rise to the occasion and deliver victories and not just the batsman. In fact, his ideologies were quite similar to ones the current Indian captain Virat Kohli has. Like having Irfan Pathan contributing as an all-rounder whilst also having four mainstream bowlers for a packed bowling attack. It is indeed similar to the one Kohli loves to follow with Hardik Pandya as the pace-bowling all-rounder with great hitting abilities and two more seam bowlers and a couple of spinners.