Former India captain Rahul Dravid, who played 93 Test matches on the trot – second-best for India after Sunil Gavaskar’s 106 – after making his debut in England in 1996, said he doubted himself as an ODI player when he was dropped from the Indian side in 1998 mainly due to his strike rate.
“There have been phases in my international career (when I felt insecure). I was dropped from the ODI team in 1998. I had to fight my way back in, was away from the Indian team for a year. There were certain insecurities then about whether I’m a good enough one-day player or not because I always wanted to be a Test player, was coached to be a Test player, hit the ball on the ground, don’t hit the ball in the air, coaching like that. You sort of worry whether you had the skills to be able do it (in an ODI),” said Dravid when asked about instances when he felt insecure.
The right-hander would then go on to represent India in the 2003 World Cup and also captain the side in the 2007 World Cup.
Dravid also highlighted the phases of insecurities while growing up as a budding cricketer in India.
“I have gone through many phases of insecurities. Growing up as a young cricketer in India is not easy, there’s a lot of competition and especially in the times I grew up there was only the Ranji Trophy and the Indian team, there was no IPL. Even the money in Ranji Trophy was so poor that there was always that constant challenge. You’ve given up a career in studies, I was not bad in it, so I could’ve easily done an MBA or something. I forego that for a career in cricket and if the cricket didn’t work out there was nothing much to fall back on. So there was a level of insecurity at that age. This kind of helps me when I interact with cricketers of this generation. I can understand some of the insecurities that they go through,” said Dravid.
