Former India captain Rahul Dravid recalled the significant contribution of the “net bowlers” to his career at an event that brought together IPL team Rajasthan Royals and its five-year partner Mitashi Edutainment.
Dravid went out of the way to say that he drew much inspiration from the net bowlers who sent down hundreds of deliveries during practice sessions. The electronics and gaming industry player presented Dravid, Abhishek Nayar and Pravin Tambe to its dealers and talked about how the company and Royals teams have grown in the last few years.
With Dravid’s presence, there was a bit of a “Talking Cricket” show and it was in response to what inspired him the most wherever he went, that the former India captain picked out the net bowlers for much praise.
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Without mulling over too long, he said: “I think the biggest thing that inspired me, every time I would to go many places and so many centres as a cricketer, was the net bowlers. When we went to the nets with the Indian team you always found net bowlers and people who came to the nets to help and assist us. You could see the passion in these young guys; they were so desperate to play well, to do well, but unluckily sometimes they did not have the talent or the gift or the luck that some of us have. A lot of these boys had so much passion and they were so desperate to do well and worked so hard. And for me these unknown people were a great inspiration. I believed that if they had so much passion then I must make best use of my talent because for some reason, I was given something that I must make the best use of.”
Dravid also gave his perception of “failure” that generally hurts cricketers at all levels. “One of the most important things when you fail is your attitude towards failure for anything you do and sport is no different. I think it happens in sport a lot and what is your approach towards that failure is important. There are two ways to approach the situation. When you fail, sometimes you ignore it or blame someone else and think you didn’t do anything wrong. If you do that, you lose confidence in yourself. I think if you are willing to be honest with your failure it can help a lot.”
Further, failure can teach you a lot and that it’s a stepping stone to success. “We often hear that after you see a lot of failure, you see success; but only if you fail in the correct way, only if you fail in the right manner and by right manner I mean that you learn from your failure. For example I was told by my coach that if you play 30 matches — whether it’s at the first class level or at Test level and you can be as experienced as you were in your first match or you can be 30-match experienced — you learn from every single match. I think it is critical to learn from your failure, being honest with yourself, look to improve and also being fair to yourself in recognising that at times you do fail and that it is a part of sport and part of life.”
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Dravid has been in the city twice recently and he has had much to offer.