When I blogged about Rahul's ODI retirement, I was not convinced just to say good bye to a stellar cricketing career through a single para, so this is a deep dive into his ODI career statistics. Rahul Dravid's ODI career has always intrigued me. He was never destined to be the greatest ODI player or even a "match winner" of sorts when he made is debut back in 1996, he was too technically correct to survive in the ODI variety. But Dravid defied all odds to become one of the best finishers the ODI format has ever seen when he was doomed to oblivion by the cricket pundits on his debut, but he survived through sheer hard work and dedication.
A glimpse of his ODI career in numbers
The first look doesn't say much, but just looking at the number of runs scored and the average at which these runs scored, something doesn't match. To understand these numbers better, we have to split Dravid's career into three distinct phases
Phase 1: The initial three years were a big struggle, he was trying to establish himself in this form of cricket and his batting style did not suit quick scoring. He was in and out of the team, he was never a regular feature in the Indian team.
This is quite evident from the fact that he just scored 1500 runs at 31 a piece. This was a time when he was not sure of his role in team nor himself in this arena.
Phase 2: This should be the best phase of his career where he made a major career choice of keeping wickets for the team. He choose to keep, to accommodate one more batsmen in the team and this turned out to be the most important decision that extended his career and in fact a catalyst that made him an Indian captain. The credit will always remain with Ganguly, but for him I don't think India would have seen the "match finisher" in Dravid, almost equal to the likes of Hussey and Beaven.
The numbers speak for themselves here. One has to remember Dravid played No 5 or No 6 in the batting order when the team line up was star studded with Ganguly, Tendulkar, Sehwag, Yuvi etc. To have scored so much runs batting so low on the order is an achievement on its own.
Phase 3: After his peak during the 2003 WC and aftermath, he was destined to become the next Indian captain and like Tendulkar his captaincy is not something many people will write about. I don't know if it was the added responsibility or start of a decline in his batting form, I think after 2005, Dravid was not the same batsman he was before 2005. He still managed to keep himself afloat in the team till the disastrous 2007 WC after which he was dropped.
These numbers are similar to the first three years of his career. He was not as productive as he wished to be and also he was chosen in the team as a genuine batsmen.
On the whole, he was one of the finest ambassadors of Indian cricket and also a strong proponent of playing the "batting" game the right way, never seen an ugly heave or an across the line hit, his batting has always been on the "V".
A glimpse of his ODI career in numbers
| Span | Mat | Runs | HS | Bat Av | 100 | Ct |
| 1996-2011 | 344 | 10889 | 153 | 39.16 | 12 | 196 |
The first look doesn't say much, but just looking at the number of runs scored and the average at which these runs scored, something doesn't match. To understand these numbers better, we have to split Dravid's career into three distinct phases
Phase 1: The initial three years were a big struggle, he was trying to establish himself in this form of cricket and his batting style did not suit quick scoring. He was in and out of the team, he was never a regular feature in the Indian team.
| Span | Mat | Runs | HS | Bat Av | 100 |
| 1996-1998 | 65 | 1709 | 107 | 31.64 | 1 |
This is quite evident from the fact that he just scored 1500 runs at 31 a piece. This was a time when he was not sure of his role in team nor himself in this arena.
Phase 2: This should be the best phase of his career where he made a major career choice of keeping wickets for the team. He choose to keep, to accommodate one more batsmen in the team and this turned out to be the most important decision that extended his career and in fact a catalyst that made him an Indian captain. The credit will always remain with Ganguly, but for him I don't think India would have seen the "match finisher" in Dravid, almost equal to the likes of Hussey and Beaven.
| Span | Mat | Runs | HS | Bat Av | 100 |
| 1999-2005 | 210 | 7134 | 153 | 42.97 | 10 |
The numbers speak for themselves here. One has to remember Dravid played No 5 or No 6 in the batting order when the team line up was star studded with Ganguly, Tendulkar, Sehwag, Yuvi etc. To have scored so much runs batting so low on the order is an achievement on its own.
Phase 3: After his peak during the 2003 WC and aftermath, he was destined to become the next Indian captain and like Tendulkar his captaincy is not something many people will write about. I don't know if it was the added responsibility or start of a decline in his batting form, I think after 2005, Dravid was not the same batsman he was before 2005. He still managed to keep himself afloat in the team till the disastrous 2007 WC after which he was dropped.
| Span | Mat | Runs | HS | Bat Av | 100 |
| 2006-2011 | 69 | 2046 | 105 | 35.27 | 1 |
These numbers are similar to the first three years of his career. He was not as productive as he wished to be and also he was chosen in the team as a genuine batsmen.
On the whole, he was one of the finest ambassadors of Indian cricket and also a strong proponent of playing the "batting" game the right way, never seen an ugly heave or an across the line hit, his batting has always been on the "V".
No comments:
Post a Comment