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'What the hell is happening Rahul? Aren't you bored?': Dravid's ex-India teammate's rare '100s after 100s' story
Rahul Dravid's penchant for scoring daddy hundreds and scoring every run like it's his first back goes back to his younger days, when he wasn't The Wall, or Jammy etc.
Rahul Dravid was patience and perseverance personified during his days as an active India cricketer. His ability to spend hours and the crease and not rushing with his innings earned him the nickname 'The Wall'. Dravid was the rock of the Indian batting line-up from the mid-1990s to 2012. And yet, for someone who was dubbed a 'Test specialist' early on in his career, Dravid ended up with over 10000 ODI runs. Long before Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, AB de Villiers and Babar Azam sizzled with a hat-trick of centuries in ODIs, Dravid made scoring hundreds after hundreds look cool. He is the only player in history to score four consecutive Test centuries.
Dravid's penchant for scoring daddy hundreds and scoring every run like it's his first back goes back to his younger days, when he wasn't The Wall, or Jammy etc. Dravid's former India teammate Hemang Badani narrated a rare incident of Dravid make waves in the local cricketing circuit, where the former India captain would hammer centuries for fun. A Bengaluru resident, Dravid was a prolific scorer in one of the biggest league tournaments in India and made batting look ridiculously easy, reveals Badani.
"He lived in Bangalore and this cricket was happening in Chennai. And he used to come over to Chennai to play the Chennai league, which is one of the most prolific leagues in India. He would come in and churn 100s after 100s. Every game. And I was somebody who was skilled but I would loft the ball and everything. Go out there and get out. Lofting and getting out long off and stuff," Badani said in a video shared by IPL franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad.
"Rahul would only keep the ball on the floor. At one point I said, Rahul you have got one 100, you got two, you got four, you've got 5. What the hell is happening Rahul? Aren't you bored? Don't you like to try something else here? He said 'Hemang, it's quite simple for me. I take a night train. In those days there were no aircrafts and they were very expensive. I take the night train. I travel for 6-6.5 hours. I am not going to travel that much and go back 6.5 hours to bat for 3 hours. I am going to bat 5 hours to get a hundred. And it's as simple as that for me. If I am travelling so much and playing the game, I better make sure that I am in there for 5 hours."
That Dravid was cut from a different cloth altogether is well explained in another one of his lessons below. Usually when a batter practices in the nets, after his session is over, he cools off and relax, but with Dravid, it was different. Even after he was done striking the ball in the nets, he would stay back and face a few more deliveries, no matter how fewer they were, but Dravid would always request for further throwdowns. Here's why.
"He said one more thing, which was that in the nets, you bat for 20 odd minutes. What do you do after that as a batter? I'll bat another minute; I'll bat for another 5 balls. You got another 10 balls. Coach, can I bat for another 5 balls, mate can you bowl another 10 balls to me. He said if I get 100, I am batting 150 balls or 170 balls. Why should I not play. Otherwise, I am begging to bowlers in the nets. He would never get out," mentioned Badani.
