As Rahul Dravid prepares to put a full stop to a 24-year- career in a format not adequately befitting his classically stylish game, the Rajasthan Royals are putting the Indian Premier League 6 spot-fixing scandal behind them.
Rahul Dravid (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Royals begin their Champions League T20 (CLT20) campaign on the familiar soil of the Sawai Mansingh Stadium on Saturday against Mumbai Indians.
With the Indian sides favourites to lift the trophy on home turf this opening encounter may well provide a guide to whether it will be the Rahul Dravid-led Royals who ultimately triumph.
Dravid, keen to sign off on a high, said, “You have to play six-seven matches for that (winning the tournament). If we keep up the performance that we had in the IPL and the spirit remains the same and if we play to our potential, I hope that we will stay in contention.”
“You want to play good cricket irrespective of the fact that it is your first or last tournament.”
He has already played his last matches in all three formats for India and the CLT20 will mark the end of a remarkable career. He is cricket’s version of the pop star, remodelling to suit the changing nature of the stage he has graced so admirably.
Dravid is hoping to end on a high (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“Most of our boys have been playing cricket,” a confident Dravid stated. “If you talk about our international players, Shane Watson and James Faulkner have arrived after playing for Australia, while Ajinkya Rahane, Ashok Menaria, Sanju Samson have been playing for India A/Under-23 India side, etc. At least eight-nine of the boys have been playing cricket continuously after the IPL.”
“We have been preparing, and you can’t prepare too much. Those who hadn’t practiced much had come a week before and we have been practicing. So we are ready,” he added.
Almost 11,000 runs in 344 One-Day Internationals at 39.16 and 2538 runs at 28.84 in 103 Twenty20 games illustrates that transformation. But at heart his 13,228 at 52.81 in 164 Tests is the redoubtable measure of his classical quality.
In short, he is the glowing testament to the adage that the best batsmen can score runs whatever the format of the game. For India, the Royal Challengers Bangalore and now the Rajasthan Royals he has continued to shine.
Rajasthan Royals finished third in IPL6 under his leadership, but the spot-fixing scandal that followed rocked the franchise, shocked the cricket world, but saw Dravid shine as an individual. He spoke in condemnation of the betting scandals and eruditely on how the game could move forward untarnished.
“We have played well here and the boys are happy to play here,” Dravid emphasised. “The crowd support is good. Our boys are comfortable here in Jaipur, so I hope we will put up a good performance this time as well.”
James Buttler
As the editor of World Cricket Badger he is intent on building the website to give quality coverage of the domestic game around the world.
He is also the presenter of the Cricket Badger Radio Show on Radio Yorkshire every Tuesday evening between 7-9pm UK time.
James was the full-time Media Manager at Yorkshire County Cricket Club between 2007 and 2010.
James is a published author, a writer/video contributor to many cricket publications and a complete cricket badger!
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