Farewell my Hero

I started playing cricket in 1996, same year when Rahul Dravid made his test debut in England. This was also the year when I started to follow cricket, first like a newbee and then like a fanatic, devouring edition of 'Cricket Samrat (or any similar magazine I could get hold of) from cover to cover. At a point of time, I remember all the batsmen who scored 199 in a test match, bottomline: those were crazy and heady days. Despite of being a new bee, I noticed a quiet batsman who missed his century at Lords' while another more fluent one, got 2 in a row and that too on debut. Since I was also learning the game, I related closely to that guy who always tried to play the perfect shot, whose effort was obvious for anyone to see, he to begin with was no genius, no maestro or if I may add no PRINCE. He was a common man, much like us, who had to work hard to get anything in life, boundaries didn't flow from his bat, he batted quietly and meticulously to build an inning to get himself noticed. I don't know about others, but I sure did, he was an inspiration, he was my "proof of concept" that if one works hard enough one can overcome his limitations.

Since those days, I followed him closely. He was, is and will be my favorite cricketer ever. I defended him ardently when the whole world blamed him for playing boring and slow cricket and declaring him unfit for One Day  cricket. I admired the fact that he was a team man, not just in words but in action, when Saeed Anwar plundered 194 against India, it was he who led the India's reply by scoring his first ODI century, sadly that was not enough. I admired his discipline, commitment and immense hard work he put into his game to become a world class player. He was a hope for a person like me who without being bestowed any particular talent wanted to make it big in this world. 

We learnt our cricket (as it happens in small towns) by watching the Greats play on tv. The pinnacles of our  short lived (and much cherished) cricket careers were the time we struck a ball which closely imitated either Dravid's cover drive or Sachin loft for a six off a leg spinner, and hence we watched them closely and obsessed over every ball they played. I was heartbroken when Dravid was dropped from the ODI team, and ecstatic when he made that rare run-a-ball century against New Zealand in New Zealand.

His dream run in 1999 world cup settled any doubts over his fitness for ODIs and by the time he hung his boots he amassed 10,000 ODI runs. I guess my faith wasn't in vain.I will always remember his outburst in Australia when we won a test match, though he almost won that match single-handedly (233 and 73* ) his celebration was for the team and for our nation.

There are many other things that I remember about Rahul Dravid, but then it is a memoir not mine to write, but as any other cricket fan in this country, we believe that we have lived the lives of our heroes. A hero who deserve an standing ovation for his farewell walk from everyone. May the WALL stand tall, as always.