Rahul Dravid may not have been a basher of the ball, but when it comes to listing some of India’s most technically sound batters, the Wall is right up there.
Dravid’s technique was hard to penetrate. Even the mightiest of pacers would admit that bowling to him was tougher than even Sachin Tendulkar. Ask Shoaib Akhtar. He would grind the ball and tire the bowler until the moment he felt it was time to perhaps switch gears a little bit. Dravid was straight out of a coaching manual. The cover drive, the leave, the stance, the bat lift. Everything was just trademark and beautiful to the eye. If Dravid could stop the ball dead in its tracks with his firm defence, he could caress the ball through his silken wrists on either side of the wicket. Fast bowlers never troubled him; spinners hardly went through his defence. Dravid could bat and milk them all five days of a Test match, and he would hardly break a sweat. That’s how good he was.
Which is why when he talks about batting, you listen. The great Tendulkar is another such individual, but Dravid’s simplicity makes him stand out above his contemporaries. Growing up, Sunil Gavaskar was Dravid’s role model, again someone who was a very different batter technically. Gavaskar was comparatively shorter, but Dravid reckons it gave him an advantage over others. In fact, the former India head coach touched upon why short batters look a lot more natural and elegant, but in the process, said something about Virat Kohli, which he instantly realised.
“Gavaskar was a beautifully balanced player. I always remember, he always seemed to. There was a stillness when he stood, which is what I admired. I was always slightly taller, so I didn;t copy anything. I just stood in a way that made me feel uncomfortable. Tendulkar again was very balanced. Shorter people have the advantage of looking more balanced because the centre of gravity is lower. That’s what they say. A lot of great batters over the years have been shorter people. Look at Gavaskar, or Tendulkar or a [Brian] Lara or a [Ricky] Ponting… going back to [Donald] Bradman. Kohli is short-ish. Virat Kohli might not like me calling him shortish, though,” Dravid said on the Haal Chaal Aur Sawaal Podcast with Ashish Kaushik.
If short batter are pleasing to watch, tall ones are more dangerous
Then again, short batters don’t have all the fun, do they? If they have their noses ahead in terms of looking like a million bucks, the taller batters have the luxury of being much better strikers of the ball. Chris Gayle, Kevin Pietersen, Yuvraj Singh, and Kieron Pollard are just some of the examples. Dravid, however, was a rare one, considering he was tall but never the ‘hitter’.
“But today, as the game is changing and becoming a lot about power and hitting sixes. The reach of the taller guys is becoming an advantage. Physics will tell you. Kevin Pietersen, Kieron Pollard. Look at the guys who are batting these days, in T20s especially,” he added.