Is Dravid the modern day robinhood of Cricket?

I am a big fan of Dravid and have followed most -if not all of his innings with great interest, his recent "stale tomato" picks or euphemistically as they say cherry picking of a test side with full of his "yes ministers" have caused great pain if not led me to develop a hatred towards this icon player. An icon becomes an icon not by chance but by a sincere, hard-working and consistent dedication towards the goal that he is pursuing working tirelessly and not letting a single opportunity to slip or switch off and definitely not committing an act of encouraging nepotism in competitive world. Any nepotism in a competitive world is nothing else but a sure sign of suicide waiting to happen. Awareness and avoidance to these traps after establishing yourself as an icon is what differentiates the "also rans" and the icons over a period of time and Dravid has all along been an icon in the international arena of cricket but somehow lost his way ever since self doubts about captaincy crept into his mind and coupled with his built-in conservative "play safe" , defend, "the wall" attitude has killed the great cricketer in him and reduced him to an also ran in a span of couple of years.

On another note an act of ensuring that his sycophants have a guaranteed salary from Vijay Mallya for 3 years is nothing short of complete ignominy directed towards Mallya .Perhaps this is a modern day case of Dravid being the robinhood to rob the rich Mallya and feed himself and his sycophants. Except the difference being that the sycophants he got into his team are neither poor nor do they need his favor to survive. It is not rocket science to figure out who his sycophants are and leave it to the reader's imagination which will be right in a single attempt. Destiny in this world is good enough for all to find their place and they have found theirs in RCB.


Now to be clear I m not looking for my moment of glory by bashing Dravid in this article but I ve been pained by a icon player doing such a poor job for a person who trusted his millions on this one man without even interfering, this is biggest dupe in this modern era especially with all decisions by anyone in public domain being scrutinized by ever so powerful fourth estate in the Right To Information RTI era.


Spare a thought for the match winners (Zaheer Khan, Mark Boucher, Virat Kohli, Praven Kumar, Dale Steyn, and Cameroon White) who in any other team even under mediocre leadership and reasonable guidance would have been fighters to a wining cause but have been reduced to mere individual flashes here and there without any result for the team to show until now. As they say you are only as strong as your weakest link in a team sport, this team seems to have too many senile and weak links all around and most are uni-skilled players who once failed in their domain have no chance to contribute in rest of the match. This sport is about 3 domains(bat, bowl & field) and future belongs to players who are good in at least 2 domains if not all 3.
Myself coming from the corporate world and a true Banglorean at heart, it's not difficult for me to see the pain of Mallya and I believe the people who follow cricket and IPL based city loyalties must understand that there is corporate side to these cricket matches being played. Mallya is not a loser and we all know him for some of the reputed brands he has built globally like Kingfisher and he has a nation backing him in Formula One sport in ForceIndia, which he has promised to put on podium by 2010 in addition to bringing a F1 race to India. Mallya went wrong and has taken the first step to resurrecting his brand along with the pride of Bangalore fans; we are with you Mallya and sorry Dravid its better you go on your own before you are shown the door by media, your fellow fans and decisively by your boss. Dravid is best for Test Cricket and he should concentrate there and let the better players perform in the 20-20 arena just like he opted out of the 20-20 world cup.



Madhu Rao (Madhusudhana.Rao@gmail.com)