Life lesson at Perth.

I’d like to talk about one of the finest innings to have not got the recognition it deserved. The fighting, gritty 93 at Perth on the first day of the 3rd test match in the 2007-08 series. Yes, it’s about Rahul Dravid, just to put it into context, in the one year preceding the knock, he led a team into the 2007 World Cup as one of the favourites but to be knocked out in the first round, Greg Chappell saga, relinquishing captaincy, dropped from the ODI team, and for the first time in his career struggling for runs in test cricket by his own lofty standards. In that particular series, he found it hard to score freely, in Melbourne he had scores of 5(66) and 16(114), in Sydney though he got a 50 in the first innings he went close to 40 balls without a run, while at the other end his dear friend VVS was having Kangaroo bowlers for lunch. Runs were coming in trickles, compare this to the 2003-04 Australia tour, he was middling everything that was hurled at him, he was the man of the series with over 500 runs. Even if Cricket Australia had scheduled a series decider on the Tasman Sea, Rahul Dravid would have still got a hundred going by the way he batted in the Aussie summer.

Coming back to Perth, that innings of 93 didn’t begin smoothly either, was dropped at 1st slip by Clarke filling in for Hayden at first slip, who was out injured. This innings gave me a life lesson, for someone who grew up watching Rahul Dravid pile up runs in the most difficult conditions, I was drawn to believe runs just came to him, I had overlooked the hard work, the willingness to fight aspect but here in this innings I saw it all, how he had to fight those “inner demons” and the fact that Rahul Dravid’s gesture of clenched fist/imaginary fist bump towards the dressing room on reaching his 50 made me believe it was special for him.

And yet not being at his usual best, his 93 remained the highest score of the match, which seemed like a familiar ending but with a different storyline.