‘India needs to find a wicket-keeper batsman’

I believe you played hockey at a fairly serious level as well?
I played for school. I enjoyed being part of teams.

What position did you play in?
I played in the centre half position. I played for three-four years…

The centre half is the pivot.
(Laughs) Yeah.

So it’s very similar to the role you play in the Indian cricket team?
I don’t know if I was put there because I couldn’t score goals or because I was the pivot, but I enjoyed playing hockey.

The centre half is somebody who indulges in a lot of self-denial. I mean, he gets the ball and passes it on to somebody else, you know, creates opportunities. That is very similar to what you do in cricket…
I have always enjoyed being a pivot. And I find a lot of satisfaction and joy in doing that kind of role. For me, I think it was something that was probably shaped in my personality at a young age.

You’re a great star and we all read stories from all over India, how many people, particularly women, were disappointed when you got married… Cricket has been very kind to you. But do you think that the role you play — that of the pivot — makes you some sort of a part-tragic character? I think you said it after one of your matches that you have got very few man of the match awards.
(Laughs) No I didn’t say that. Actually…

No, you didn’t say it as a complaint. I think you said it to make the point that ‘‘this one was so special’’…
No, to be honest I enjoy that. I think, like you said, cricket’s been very kind to me. And people keep telling me, ‘‘Oh, you don’t get enough credit’’. I say, I think I get more credit than I do (deserve).

But what is the problem with Indian batting? Why is it not able to handle fast bowling, particularly when it goes overseas? Is that the main reason why we haven’t won overseas very much?
A combination of reasons. Obviously the batting’s been a big factor, in the sense that we haven’t been able to post enough big scores a lot of times. Also, in the fast bowling, ability to get 20 wickets on tracks abroad, which makes a huge difference… At the end of the day, bowlers win you Test matches. Batsmen can only set up Test matches.

That’s not something Bishan Singh Bedi agrees with. He says it’s a batsman’s game.
Well, maybe it’s a batsman’s game. But at the end of the day, only 20 wickets win you a Test match.

You owe that big headstart on the fame graph, to a fast bowler — Allan Donald. What happened at Durban? I think it was a six that you hit over long-on and there were some words exchanged.
It was at the heat of the moment. Allan Donald’s one of the finest bowlers I have played against — terrific competitor and a very good bowler when at his peak. It was a crucial game, it was a final, and things got heated up a bit and I think he didn’t expect me of all people to hit him for six and…

Nobody did.
(Laughs) Maybe I didn’t either.

Then what happened? He came and swore at you… threatened to knock your head off…
I think he said something about it being a tough game and how…. But I have realised that if you get somebody angry, if you get a bowler angry at the other end, I think you’ve won half the battle, because…. I find that I play best when I am relaxed and I don’t react and I can keep my cool.

There have been occasions when you’ve lost your cool…
There have been. But after a period of trial and error, I’ve realised that it works best for me if I don’t lose my cool and I perform best in that kind of situation. So I’ve worked on it.

In fact, it was the Donald episode that got you the nickname ‘‘The Wall’’, is it? And I remember your first commercial — ‘‘Fast bowlers swear at Dravid; Dravid swears by my product!’’ Something like that…
To be honest, I don’t know what the exact genesis of the name is and where all these names come from. In any case, all these names keep changing. One day you are ‘‘The Wall’’, and one day they say, ‘‘The Wall is crumbling’’. So I don’t take these things too seriously.

But what does set you apart is the fact that you can handle fast bowling. I remember the match — was it at Perth? — where Brett Lee was bowling really fast and (Sadagopan) Ramesh had got hit, and you shielded him.
It was Melbourne. It was probably the quickest spell of bowling I’ve ever faced. Lee was at his quickest.

Was it his debut match? Or thereabouts?
Thereabouts. You know, in a lot of ways, I’ve been a little lucky, having played a lot of my initial cricket on the matting wickets of Bangalore, where the ball does tend to bounce a bit more than normal. And when I was growing up, I had a chance to play people like Srinath and Venky (Prasad) at their best at the nets regularly, which definitely helped my batting. Because I knew that if I was playing Srinath confidently in the nets, and he was an international bowler at the time, then…

Tell me about some of the high points in your cricketing career — an innings, a shot, apart from that six off Allan Donald, which you say you didn’t mean to hit.
Obviously, the highest point is walking in to make your Test debut. I mean, it’s something you dream of as a young kid. You always want to play cricket and you always want to play for India.

And I remember when you got out, I think at 95, and the BBC commentator said, ‘‘And (Chris) Lewis breaks Rahul Dravid’s dream’’.
To be honest, you know, it was not that shattering. I always looked at the positive of it and I said I’ve had a great test debut and…. You feel disappointed for a while. You know, for the first 10-15 minutes you come back to the dressing room and you feel disappointed you missed out on a hundred. But later on when you think about it, and you look at the positives, you say, ‘‘Well, at least it’s a cup half full,’’ you know.

And after that you would get a little caught up in the 80s and 90s. What kind of mental block was that?
To be honest, it… nothing seemed to bother me too much. Obviously I was getting out and not getting as many 100s as I’d like and I’ve got out a couple of times in the 90s and the 80s. But it wasn’t like I was trying to analyse and thinking or was it that I was panicking or was it something that I was doing wrong. But I realised that no, it’s just one of those things, you know. Either I get a good ball or I play a poor shot. And I knew that once I got the second one…

Did that again add to that image of the tragic hero?
(Laughs) Probably did.

But people have told you this before?
Probably did. And I don’t know…I guess these images, you know, they’re not something that I sort of live up to or I try and create, you know. I just go out and play the game and I go out and do something I really love and enjoy and play to the best of my ability and at the end of the day people form these images about you and things. But I’ve never tried to live up to any of these images.

Who have you most enjoyed batting with?
I have really enjoyed batting with Sachin (Tendulkar) over the years. We’ve had some good partnerships. Not only does he make batting look good, but he makes batting easier for you at the other side. He’s fantastic with, you know, his… the way he runs his runs for you; the kind of advice he gives you.

That was never the strength of India batsmen — running the runs for somebody else…
No, I won’t say that’s true. To be honest, we’ve got a good bunch of guys. I’ve had some good partnerships with Saurav (Ganguly) as well over the years. Good partnerships, like, example you know, last year I had a good partnership with Sanjay Bangar in Headingley, which was really a big point for me because it was a crucial part of the game — we needed to get a good start in that Test match — in difficult conditions, and we had a great partnership.

Well, talk about bowlers then. Which are the ones you have enjoyed playing against?
Yeah, I think that’s been one of the joys for me, of playing international sport at the level I have played at. I get to compete with probably people who are like almost my heroes and people who are the best in the profession.

Such as…
People like (Glenn) McGrath or (Wasim) Akram or Waqar Younis.

But still among the fast bowlers, who do you rate…
I think McGrath would probably be one of the best I have played against.

Or maybe you’ll take a combination of a fast bowler and a spell that you faced. Like you said, that spell from Brett Lee at Melbourne.
Exactly. You know… on their day, between six or seven of them, any of them could be devastating and deadly.

Where did you see McGrath at his best?
I think when we toured Australia. He bowled great lines and terrific areas and…

And the last World Cup Super Sixes?
Exactly. I think at The Oval in the last World Cup in ’99. They put up a good score and he needed to get wickets early and I think he knocked off Sachin, myself and I think Azzu (Mohammad Azharuddin) very quickly… we didn’t have a chance after that. But over the years, I think consistently, he’s been a really good bowler. And so are people like Akram. And even if you look at people like Srinath.

Well, Imran Khan told me: ‘‘He’s the unluckiest bowler in the world’’. He said one because you overuse him, you know, ‘‘you’ve turned him into a stock bowler’’. And second, he said, ‘‘you have such bad slips’’…
Sri’s probably been one of the most underrated fast bowlers. When you talk to other batsmen…from other teams… They rate Srinath so highly.

And to have to bowl 25 overs in a day at his pace and…?
Yeah, it’s been tough. He’s had to lead the attack for a long time…. And he had a couple of injuries at probably the prime of his career, when he was just sort of building up.

And you’ve had more trouble actually playing spinners, or left-arm spinners, I thought.
I’ve had… I won’t say I’ve had more trouble. But yeah, I’ve got out a few times to spinners. I mean people like (Shane) Warne and (Muttiah) Muralitharan and Saqlain (Mushtaq) and they are world-class spinners. But whereas Warne and Murali have got me out a few times, I’ve had a lot of success against them as well. So it works both ways.

Let me take you to Eden Gardens — the famous partnership that you and (VVS) Laxman had. Did you ever imagine, when you came out to bat, that such a thing was possible?
No. To be honest, no. I didn’t think that we could, you know. I didn’t think that we could put up that big a score. I definitely knew that we could…I think the idea was to try and stay there and bat as long as we could.

At which point did you think that it was possible?
I think at the…sort of…just after lunch on the second…the day after…the next day, just after lunch when I was batting in the 70s and Laxman was already going very well on 170-180. I think at that stage we sat down and discussed that say if we keep going…keep going like this for the next couple of hours, we could really put pressure on these guys, because they were tiring, you know.

Was that the highest point of your career, you’d say?
One of them. Without a doubt the best series and one of the best days of cricket that I’d played in. Just to be able to watch the way Laxman played at the other end…

And what’s the big disappointment? The Australia series when you went to Australia? There were lots of expectations…you’ll get lots of runs… What went wrong?
From the personal point of view, yeah, it was a big disappointment. But, you know, there were also a couple of Test matches here that we could have won. I think….we could have won a match in Barbados when I toured there in ’96. This World Cup final was something that…. Not a huge disappointment, but yeah, having got so close I think we…I felt we could have put up a better display on the day. Then the Johannesburg Test match in ’96…in ’97 where due to rain we couldn’t win.

How do you rate today’s fast bowling attack that we’ve got? We suddenly seem to have three or four bowlers who can bowl upwards of 140 (kmph).
Terrific! I think these guys are coming through. I think it’s been the result of some good… good atmosphere that we’ve created within the team. And the lot of work, that the boys have put in, in terms of fitness…

How do you rate these three or four compared to others in the world? You know — say, Zaheer (Khan), (Ashish) Nehra, Srinath… Srinath of course, but (Ajit) Agarkar…?
I think they are at the early stages of their career… sort of 10-15 minutes into their career. I think for them to be rated as world-class and in that league, they have to do it consistently over a period of time. They have the potential to be great.

But we seem to be weakening a bit on the spin front.
Harbhajan and Anil are there. So that’s… Couple of good youngsters coming through as well. But yeah, I think overall… I haven’t played much domestic cricket, but what I hear from talking to friends in the domestic league, they tell me the standard of spin seems to have gone down a bit. There could be a variety of factors for that. Probably, you know, the amount of one-day cricket we play, the kind of wickets that we play on….

And your role as wicketkeeper — are you enjoying it?
Well, I’ve probably done it till the World Cup. And I enjoyed it till the World Cup. In the sense that it really helped us do better as a team. It gave us the extra option.

But do you see yourself doing it in the future?
I don’t want to make a statement saying I’ll never do it or I will do it. At the end of the day, I think India needs to find a wicketkeeper-batsman. I think, if you look at world-class teams today, one-day teams today, you’ll realise that they need…the role of the specialist ’keeper is redundant. And if he’s (wicketkeeper) a specialist, and he can bat in the top six, then that’s what you need. A (Adam) Gilchrist), or a (Mark) Boucher, or an Alec Stewart…

So you’d prefer that you don’t have to do it?
I’d definitely like to look at some of the younger guys who can come up and do the job, you know. And…we’ve got some young talent. People like Parthiv (Patel) and people like that. I think, you know, if they can step up and put their hands up, you know.

At the same time, Rahul, it’s a good feeling to keep wickets to these fast bowlers and to have the ball thudding into your gloves. (Laughs)
Well, it’s a good feeling…. Uhh…it’s a…it’s a feeling of relief actually (laughs).

Relief? Why?
Because at least it’s thudding in and staying in the gloves, you know. It’s a…

You haven’t dropped that many. I don’t think…
I am sure when the batsman nicks them and the bowlers just…first thing they do is pray, you know. They hope that…whether Rahul’s going to catch it or not.

But most times you get it right… I think that’s the trait you’ve brought to this team — the idea of playing for the team and not just for your records.
I think the whole team’s doing that at the moment. I wouldn’t want to take the credit myself… it’s really helped that people like Saurav and Sachin are thinking the same way. And I think we’ve got a good core group of senior guys who are not only just… not only sort of saying things, but walking the talk really.