Rahul Dravid retired from Test cricket after 164 matches, 13288 runs, and 36 hundreds. One of the greatest batters to ever grace the game. Leaving the game is never easy. Batters usually hold on longer than they ideally should. That wasn’t the case for Dravid.
At 38, he was still going strong. Chatting with his former teammate Ravichandran Ashwin, Dravid revealed that one bad series was enough for him to move on. One of the reasons why older athletes fail to perform at the level they had before is the state of their bodies. In the past, Dravid has opened up about failing to recover quickly after long days on the field.
Significance of a dropped catch
This hurt his batting and even his fielding. Regarded as one of the finest slip fielders, Dravid recalled how a dropped catch brought the idea of retirement into his head. Adam Gilchrist also decided to hang up his boots after dropping a regulation catch.
“Yes, when I dropped the catch off your bowling of Michael Hussey at the MCG. It was one of the easiest catches I have ever dropped in my life,” Dravid jokingly said after Ashwin asked him about the exact moment he decided to retire.
“I don’t think that was the moment. But you know that it’s time to move on. I knew after the end of the series but didn’t want to make an emotional decision,” he added.
Kohli & Rohit waiting
Dravid knew guys like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, and Cheteshwar Pujara were coming up. Rohit and Rahane were yet to make their Test debuts at the moment, but Pujara and Kohli had already started making their mark. Kohli had scored a hundred in Dravid’s last match, while Pujara had scored 3 hundreds in his 9-match career.
“I could see a lot of young players coming through. People like Virat and Rohit were coming. Virat just had a great series. Rohit hadn’t played a Test match in that series. Puji had gotten some runs but was coming back from an ACL injury. Rahane was doing well.
There were 4-5 guys coming through, and I could see that they were going to be the next generation of young Indian cricketers. I felt I had done my time, played as much as I could, and taken the team as far as I could. Losing 0-4 in England and Australia doesn’t help either,” Dravid added.
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