Dissecting Dravid's brain: If such a thing exists ....

WARNING: Let me warn you first if you are a Dravid fan: Don't read further. Either you'll feel depressed to see some blatant truths about Dravid's brain or unwantedly get high BP about this article. Either way, it's not good for health. For the rest of the thinking population, you have the green signal to go ahead & enjoy this.

Dravid's batting in the first test of Aus 2007 series is a study of a unread book. The problem is that the book is blank as his brain. It is not hard to write a book of no shots, and indeed it is empty. What is cricket without actually hitting the ball? That innings reminded some acute observers, including myself, those olden days when Dravid was well known for his half-an-inch-outside-offstump-well-left, and the-not-a-penny-worth-rock-solid-defense. Dravid, the name itself sparked emotions from the innocuous cricket balls since only he took care of them properly, by simply not hitting them. The likes of Pollock, Donald, and Akthar had to think twice to bowl at him....just to not waste their energy in runups: anyhow, he was going to beautifully (as described by the Sunny-another-darvid-Gavaskar) leave lot of balls. why run so long...!

Somehow he transformed himself to a better player, and remained in both the ODI and the Test team. Those periods were his golden era. He played the balls on their merit, and scoring runs was back on his priority list. And now, suddenly he is back to his old & useless self.

Any batsman, at the start of his innings , defends few balls to get set, and then starts playing his shorts. Sometimes, when a wicket falls or a particular bowler is bowling a testing over, it is okay to defend few more balls. Dravid's mind somehow gets the idea that every ball by an australian bowler is a threat to his wicket, and he is the last wicket OR has it got a wrong idea that runs are measured by how many minutes he stays at the wicket?? OR has it taken his nick 'wall' literally?

The pure joy for hate-dravid-as-captain-club people is to watch him captain the side during an ODI in the first 15 overs. Since there's a freedom of placing catching fielders anywhere in that 15 yard circle, he's usually confused like hell. He'll remove the 2nd slip, and the next ball would fly through 2nd slip for 4. So immediately he'll move the short cover to 2nd slip, and the next ball would go down as chance at cover......overall, he simply didn't have any gameplan as captain. Now, by playing like a brain-dead batsman, sweat-like-crazy-for-scorning-5-runs-in-11-overs, eat-balls-like-kumbakarna, score-20-runs-play-30-overs....he has shown that he can't have a gameplan as a batsman too. Let no one say 'Dravid is a class act' as he's only fit for closet (something else fits here nicely, but this blog is a neat place you know).

Looking at this in any angle, it is hard to fathom what was his mind upto. Only he'll know. Till then his batting remains an empty book. Simply nothing!