Dravid ready for another Test

An hour or so before that, Rahul Dravid had quietly, almost unnoticed, walked into the nets, neither triggering hysteria nor needing an usher. The former skipper, looking as fit as he has been in an international career now into its 15th year, immediately got down to business, alternating between throwdowns from Gary Kirsten, a stint at the spinners’ net and another at the fast bowlers’ domain before easing back and watching the rest of his team-mates hone their skills.

 A little while later, after greeting Australian umpire Steve Davis, Dravid was back at the pacers’ net, squaring up against Ishant Sharma and Zaheer Khan, bowling with great fire. A few uncomfortable moments early on gave way to fluency; Dravid was in his elements, his preparations for the first Test against New Zealand on the right track.

 If Dravid feels a touch of nerves, a hint of insecurity, going into the match, it is understandable. It will be a gross exaggeration to suggest he is playing for his place in the side, but the chasing pack is snapping at his heels – or so is the impression that is gathering pace.

 Just over 12 months back, at this same venue, Dravid produced an innings of great magic on the first day of the Test series against Sri Lanka. Early morning blues came back to haunt India as the top caved in, the hosts reduced to 32 for four by the Lankan pacers. Dravid batted as if he was elsewhere – in the ‘zone’, they call it – to conjure a sensational 177, an innings of such authority, imperious arrogance and spectacular strokeplay that it was difficult to imagine why this man was labelled ‘The Wall’. Then followed a flowing 144 at Green Park in Kanpur in the next Test, a compilation that mocked the slowness of the track, and was an absolute study in the art of constructing a blazing innings without resorting to risk-taking.

 One year on, the 37-year-old finds himself under a little bit of pressure, some of it internal, some of it extraneous but most of it unjustified. An otherwise low-profile series assumes significance for Dravid – averaging 34 in his last seven Tests – as it does for Gautam Gambhir; both needing good outings as much for self- confidence as anything else going to South Africa next month.

Those twin hundreds against Sri Lanka were followed up by another century in Mirpur against Bangladesh, an innings cut short when he ducked into a Shahadat Hossain bouncer that didn’t quite get up.

Tempting as it might be for his tiny but vocal legion of critics to suggest that that injury has affected mind and body, nothing can be farther from the truth because since then, Dravid has played the short ball with felicity against some of the quickest bowlers in the business. A workmanlike 77 in Mohali against Australia suggested normal service had been restored after a less than extraordinary tour of Sri Lanka, but two single-digit scores since and Cheteshwar Pujara’s second-innings half-century on debut have set mischievous tongues wagging again.

 The think-tank, it must be stressed, isn’t being swayed by motivated loose-talk. Dravid remains Kirsten and Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s go-to man, the pivotal number three with plenty of good cricket left in him. Even a 144-Test veteran can do with the huge doses of confidence being infused by the brains trust; his determination to repay that faith and to prove to himself that he still has a lot to offer will be the engine on the back of which he will seek to become the team’s engine-room all over again.

What Dravid should perhaps guard against is the anxiety to over-reach and try too hard, if there is anything like that. The man who once made the art of leaving the ball outside off a science is now less inclined to letting balls go, but he is smart enough to have figured out in the last couple of weeks what he did when he was tasting such overwhelming success in the past.

‘Side, please’? Rahul Dravid is definitely not having any of it!