Dravid vs Alpha Male

Rahul Dravid has been one of my favorite cricketers ever since he made his debut in international cricket. The venue was Singapore and the year 1996. He played 2 ODIs and scored 3 and 4 runs in 4 and 7 balls respectively. He played just a handful of deliveries and yet I knew I was looking at a batsman with technique and style bar none. In those 7 runs and 11 balls (9 effectively) he somehow announced to me his class as a batsman. As an avid believer and eager disciple of the purity of copy-book batting technique, I was a fan of the man.

I remember discussing the tournament at the Naval club in Bombay the following weekend with my Dad and his friends over some good old Peter Scot whiskey (The touted Indian Black Label). One "uncle" in particular was focusing his ire on the incompetent fool who had replaced Kambli on the team and the selectors for so obviously picking someone through the quota system. He was talking about Dravid and like 95% of our cricket crazy nation, his yardstick for measuring a player's ability was the scoreboard of the latest game. I told him that I thought Dravid showed glimpses of greatness and will go on to become a star. I was summarily dismissed as a naive 18 yr old by that gathering.

Of course, our selectors promptly dropped him from the team for his "poor showing". God knows how many new comers have been given one or two chances and banished forever if luck wasn't with them at right that moment. Even a fool with some degree of cricketing experience knows that for a batsman getting the runs on the board on a given day, depends a lot on luck. Luck which unfortunately wasn't around when players like Amol Muzumdar were given their fleeting chances in the limelight.

Anyhow, Dravid wasn't destined to live with the bad luck of Singapore. He got his chance against England in a test series. The selectors had pulled a couple of very surprising moves by including Dravid and Ganguly in that squad. The newspapers were going to town about the disastrous selection, but I was looking forward to seeing more of that brilliance that momentarily shone in Singapore.

The rest, as they say, is history. The series marked the arrival of two of the towering peaks of Indian cricket that would stand out majestically for more than a decade. Ganguly got a hundred, and Dravid a 95 in one of the most memorable duo-debuts ever. That inning and his 148 against South Africa in Johannesburg meant that Dravid was now making a serious pitch to join Tendulkar, Warne and Jadeja on my cricket poster wall.

10 years later Dravid is the captain of the Indian cricket team. I still continue to admire the batting of the man they call "the wall" but I have come to realize that while he is the most dependable foot soldier in the battalion, he is not a Commander. He can be a Tenzing Norgay, but never a Edmund Hillary. Always destined to succeed as a follower, as a second fiddle.

This realization brought into perspective the debuts of Dravid and Ganguly. Both were brilliant, but Ganguly eclipsed Dravid. This can be brushed off as mere coincidence, and it may well be, but one can't help notice the similarity between that event and the natural personality of these individuals.

Dravid is the hard-working intelligent kid - Kid 1 - we all knew in high school - the one that did all the homework, sat on the first bench, raised his hand in class and slogged to earn his academic ranking. Ganguly on the other hand is the cocky latent genius of the class - Kid 2 - that has fun with the wild kids and occasionally ignores homework but when exam time comes around he easily outdoes the performance of other bright kids like Kid 1 and no one knows how. All the kids like Kid 1, rarely does anyone have anything bad to say about him. Even the kids from the rival school have nothing against him and he is probably gracious when he meets them. Importantly, he doesn't inspire passion and emotion in the people who know him. Kid 2 on the other hand has a polarizing affect on people - his friends would gladly risk injury to aid him in a school yard brawl and his enemies are vary of his reputation as a worthy adversary. He doesn't back away from a fight and will gladly take the battle to the enemy camp. The kids from the rival school hate his guts and spend time and energy plotting revenge. His school mates see this attitude in the rivals and that galvanizes their resolve. In sport and in battle this cocktail of emotions and hormones brings about the best in men. This illustrates why Ganguly is a great captain, and Dravid a horrible one.

Dravid is not a natural leader of men. A natural leader of men has to be Alpha in nature. Dravid's nuptial decisions remove any doubt about his non-existent Alpha tendencies. He was in effect India's most eligible bachelor. He could have had any woman he wished for, and then some. What did he do instead? He wasn't linked or seen with any woman through his bachelorhood and he settled for a girl selected by his mother in an arranged marriage setting, and (at the risk of sounding shallow) the evidence suggests that he didn't even push forth a criteria for physical attractiveness. Obedience towards parents, respecting and accepting the decisions made by your elders... are all admirable qualities that could shine brightly as medals if imbibed by most Indian men, excepting one maverick breed - "Alpha males" !

An Alpha male does not follow, he leads. He does not sit around to be given his lot in life, by anyone. He takes what he desires. He creates his opportunities and certainly does not squander those presented to him. By playing the quiet obedient son and turning his back on limitless opportunities in testosterone heaven, Dravid displayed many great qualities, but simultaneously announced that he was no Alpha. Not even a Beta. Such a man cannot captain India.

I blame him for not trying hard enough against Bangladesh in the world cup. A win-at-any-cost India would have pulled out the stops in dismissing the Bangla boys in their run chase. No niceties, rather the short-statured teenagers would have to pass through fire and brimstone. Instead, Dravid's India had to play the gracious big brothers on the field. Even after the stunning loss, instead of seething with feelings of revenge, retribution and cold resolve, Dravid walked over to the Bangla camp to gift Tameem a bat for his batting display. Greatness befitting a saint, a social worker, Mother Teresa perhaps, but the captain of a sport played by men? Not in my book. "Winning isn't everything, it is participation that counts". This stupid jingle was invented to satisfy losers and wimps. A real sportsman rephrased it subsequently - "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing."

India earned the rare distinction of a series win in England recently. I do not attribute that to Dravid's leadership. The first draw was a stroke of luck with the rain gods preventing certain defeat. The second powered by brilliant batting performances and some great bowling. Everything went right for India in this game and I didn't see any evidence of captaining brilliance inspiring the win. Nevertheless it can be considered a good game for Dravid the captain. The third showcased some more brilliance in batting and India had a great chance to emphatically win 2-0. Instead Dravid's personality shone through once again to paint India as a nation of pacifistic risk averse gentlemen. He did not enforce the follow on and he was never going to have the time to bowl England out in the 4th innings. Meaning, he was shooting for a draw. A 1-0 scoreline coupled with a rain earned lucky escape meant a paper victory for us, but barely. I would have hoped that we took on the 2% risk and backed ourselves to come good on the 98% chance for victory that a follow on would have afforded us. Not in Dravid land though, we eschew risks, eat Jam and vegetarian food and spread the joy of loving thy neighbor.

We lost the 3rd one dayer against England yesterday, not because of a lack of aggression, but because we picked an incredibly dumb team. Our batting ended at number 6! 5 tail-enders in a modern day one day team? I'm beginning to think that Dravid's problems as a captain are not limited to lack of "Alpha-ness". They seem to be broader than that, touching areas of core strategic competency. Would someone please put Dravid the captain out of his misery, and let him do what he does best - be a worker ant extraordinaire. Captaincy needs to be restored to Ganguly. While he plays out his cricketing days in a final flourish, some of the younger players with Alpha tendencies like Yuvraj and Zaheer need to be groomed to step into his shoes.