Pursuit of perfection
The moment Rahul Dravid realised the Indian captaincy was proving a distraction from his relentless pursuit of batting perfection, he decided to step down immediately.
The reliable middle-order batsman quit the job on Friday, saying he wanted to focus on his own game.
The move was hardly surprising because Dravid was more of an exemplar than a motivator during his two-year reign, which saw India win eight Tests, including series victories in the West Indies, England and Bangladesh.
When the 34-year-old Dravid failed with the bat, the perfectionist in him had to rebel.
He found it unacceptable that his lofty batting standards had slipped. He averaged 20.83 in South Africa last season and 25.20 in England this year in three-Test series, far below his overall average of 56.50.
Credit to him for choosing a forthright route to regaining his batting magic. It augurs well for India, as he can now perform without the burden of captaincy to serve his team better.
Nicknamed "The Wall" for his solid defence, Dravid has spent more than a decade in international cricket striving to improve upon his performance. He has scored 9,492 runs in 112 Tests and 10,534 in 327 one-day internationals.
Former Australia captain Ian Chappell said he was not surprised by Dravid's decision, saying he would be remembered as one who had left the job with his "dignity intact."
"I'm not surprised because Dravid is the kind of person who puts his heart and soul into any job he tackles," he wrote in his column on the Cricinfo website.
"When you do that, especially in a country where a billion people all think they can do the job better or at least as well, it can wear you down mentally.
"If you give the captaincy your all, there is a definite use-by date. Dravid, an intense and thoughtful individual, has obviously reached the end of the line as captain."
Dravid dropped hints of things to come during the recent tour of England when former England captain Michael Atherton asked him whether leading India was a burden.
"Burden is too strong a word and people say that because of how I look. I'm not naturally a cheery-looking soul on the field. I do enjoy it but there are aspects I find tough," the Hindu newspaper quoted him as saying.
"What I find hardest is the absolute lack of proportion. It makes it very hard to build a team when two or three bad games provoke such an extreme reaction. The media in India have been changing rapidly."
He is not the first Indian to quit captaincy for batting. Sachin Tendulkar did the same in 2000 when he stepped down after a two-Test home series against South Africa in order to concentrate on his game.
Dravid took over from Sourav Ganguly in 2005 and had many firsts to his credit as a Test skipper.
He led India to their only Test win in South Africa and then to the first Test series victory in the West Indies in 35 years in 2006. Last month, India won their first Test series in England in two decades.
Under him, India won a record 17 successive one-day internationals chasing targets.
But his most disappointing moment came in the World Cup in the Caribbean early this year when India were knocked out in the first round after a shock defeat against Bangladesh.
"I enjoyed the captaincy. I loved it, but it can get tough after a while and some of the enjoyment can go away. So I thought it was the right time to step aside," said Dravid, 34.
India will name a new captain on Tuesday for the upcoming home one-day series against Australia, with wicketkeeper-batsman Mahendra Singh Dhoni tipped for the job.
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