da dobrowin： Rahul Dravid isn’t the sort of man prone to giving his team a spray ofabuse in the dressing-room, but he could have been forgiven that atKingsmead
Dileep Premachandran in Durban30-Dec-2006Listen to Rahul Dravid’s press conference
Dravid prasied Mahendra Singh Dhoni for ‘curbing his natural instincts’ … © AFP
Rahul Dravid isn’t the sort of man prone to giving his team a spray ofabuse in the dressing-room, but he could have been forgiven that atKingsmead after a batting performance that was as dismal as any seen inrecent years. Asking for “more runs from the principal batsmen, myselfincluded” is one thing, but the nature of the surrender should learn tosome long, hard navel-gazing within the team.”Today was a little disappointing,” he said, surely swallowing the urge tocouch his dismay in stronger terms. “We knew we had to bat out no morethan 70 or 75 overs, but we couldn’t manage that. [Makhaya] Ntini bowled agood spell first up and the top-order couldn’t cope with it. That proveddecisive in the end.”Some of the shots played belonged more in a Twenty20 than in a Test matchwhere batting out time was the order of the day, but Dravid didn’t comedown too hard on frankly atrocious stroke selection. “It was both acombination of some good bowling and not-so-good batting,” said Dravidwhen asked what had been the main cause of another Durban humiliation. “Wecould have batted better in both innings.”We could have played a lot better in the first innings, on the secondevening and the third morning. But we lost wickets in quick succession onthe third morning, and that put us under pressure. If you go behind by 80or 100 runs in the first innings, then you are always playing catch-up.It’s not easy batting last after conceding that kind of a lead. We couldhave got more runs in the first innings.”The lone splash of colour on a miserable grey day for the Indians came inthe shape of a tremendously gutsy knock from Mahendra Singh Dhoni, whobatted 106 minutes and 67 balls for his 47, despite his fingers being inmashed-potato condition. The defiance ended in poor fashion, with aflashing drive to slip, but Dravid refused to be too harsh on a man whohas played through the pain barrier over the past two days.”We do discuss a lot about reading the play, reading the situation,” hesaid. “I’ve been very impressed with the improvement he [Dhoni] has shown.He’s learning and adapting all the time. He showed a lot of pluck andfight today. He’s working very hard at curbing his natural instincts.”
… but blamed the rest of the batsmen for poor shot selection © AFP
Curbing natural instincts is one thing, overcoming bad habits quiteanother. After the Wanderers triumph, it had been pointed out that Indiahad an appalling record when it came to backing up a victory. Sure enough,that sequence continued in Durban, with a hungry and desperate SouthAfrican side shading the key moments of the contest. Dravid didn’t want toattribute the loss to any sort of jinx, merely saying: “It’s just that wedidn’t play well. It was not as if the boys were complacent or took iteasy.”We knew we would be in for a tough contest. For long periods of thisgame, we have stayed close to the South Africans, we have remainedcompetitive. It’s just that right towards the end, they pushed ahead ofus.”He was confident that things would be different in Cape Town, where MunafPatel will surely be back to lend added potency to a bowling line-up thathas already surpassed expectations. “We’ll have to come back hard andfight it out,” said Dravid. “One of the advantages of back-to-back Testsis that there isn’t much time to think and brood. We have to pickourselves up after this defeat. We’ve been close to them throughout thatseries. We have to keep maintaining that performance and do better in thecrunch situations.”He had no intention of playing the blame game, but his answer when askedabout Virender Sehwag’s place being under threat at Newlands wasrevealing. “I don’t want to discuss selectorial issues with the media,” hesaid, but the missing platitudes suggested just how far a once-thrillingshot-maker has fallen. “After every Test, irrespective of the result, wesit down and address various issues. It will be no different this timeeither.”