Rahul Dravid’s ready wit, in between serious cricket talk, went down well with the audience at the book launch of The Akash Chopra Insider at the C.K. Nayudu Hall in Cricket Club of India (CCI) on Friday.
After sharing a personal belief that he finds writing a column or book liberating, Chopra asked Dravid: “What should be Ajinkya Rahane’s batting order (in Test cricket). I think it should be No. 5,”.
Dravid, the current India ‘A’ coach, paused for a few seconds, looked at Rahane and asked him, “Where do you want to bat buddy.” Then he said with some finality. “He’s a good No. 5. He gets a chance to face the second new ball and also bat with the lower order and tail.”
Rahane has scored 804 of his 1353 runs at No. 5 with two centuries and five half-centuries. “I think we had to work hard to get into the Indian team. I played five years of first class cricket, around 50 odd matches and scored many centuries. Probably the difference is that Rahane may have played more shots and entertained. I think he’s probably India’s best batsman of the last 18 months. He has scored runs in New Zealand, South Africa, England and Australia.”
Chopra asked Dravid and Rahane a number of questions and one of them was the stance (distance between the feet) getting wide, including that of India captain Virat Kohli. “Cricket is a performance game. It’s judged by the results produced. I was told by Duncan Fletcher that Graeme Pollock had a wide stance. Greg Chappell had a narrow stance; and they scored phenomenal runs. There is no one size that fits all.”
When Chopra asked Rahane about the Indian batsmen’s inability to deal with spin (Rangana Herath) in the Galle Test, the Mumbai right-hander said that the Indian batsmen were not that bad against spin. “We must give credit to the spinners. Our tactics was to play out their first spells and then attack. We will do well against spinners in the home series against South Africa,” said Rahane.
Published by Harper Collins Publishers India and ESPNCricinfo, the former India opener has made an attempt to decode the craft of cricket. The book was released by Dravid and Rahane.
