On 30th July 2011, a hot Saturday evening in the mecca of cricket, Lord's, as Rahul Dravid paddle swept Graeme Swan for a four, he entered in the leagues of legends in the cricketing world. 'The wall' as he has been hailed in the international arena of cricket, scored his 34th century, thereby equaling the records of West Indian icon Brian Lara and the Indian batting wizard, Sunil Gavaskar. The 38 year old showed remarkable skill and exceptional courage to take on the English bowlers, surviving blows and injuries, but not succumbing to any pressure. With a flawless technique and a face that reflected an ocean of resoluteness, Rahul Dravid stood facing the wicket, unperturbed. For most of the cricket obsessed individuals like me, Rahul Dravid in the cricket world is not only about statistics or numbers. He has surpassed most of the benchmarks of cricketing excellence and is equaled to the likes of master blaster Sachin Tendulkar or our dear Dada Sourav Ganguly. The making of Rahul Dravid hasn't been an easy one. He has seen it all. Failures and critcism in his initial stages of ODI career were enough to put an average guy on backfoot. But Mr. Dependable never lost his nerves and made sure he is in the Indian squads. Dravid's career is an example of the fact that determination can make the impossible possible. He has been described as 'The nice guy who finished first' by Devendra Prabhudesa in a biographical book titled with the same epithet. Some classics lessons to extract from this legend's life can be the following.Love What You Do
I remember a video speech I saw on the Internet by a popular cricket commentator and journalist, Harsha Bhogle in the campus of prestigious IIM - A. In the video, Harsha described his interview experience with iconic Allan Border on coaching budding cricketers. As per Harsha, Allan Border said, "If you take care of the runs, the dollars will look after themselves." Rahul Dravid has been a classic example of a youth who wasn't distracted by the lure of dollars, or rather, rupees. His single minded dedication was the love for cricket. Money and fame, as we know, followed and that too in abundance. But Dravid's love for his game never changed.
