At Slip stood our Wall!

Dear Rahul Sharad Dravid,
As you retire from the Gentleman’s Game, my guilt overrides me as I make these confessions.
1. I never enjoyed watching you bat. Like several other Indian fans, in most matches, I was awake and glued to the TV when the likes of Tendulkar and Sehwag were exhibiting their mastery, but timed my sleep hours for the time you came in to bat. You could never keep me awake with awe-inspiring lofts and pulls. But you let me sleep -- sleep with a reassured peace that you were around, standing as the Wall when our other heroes were falling by the bullet!
2. I never missed you when you weren’t around. Each time, a Rohit Sharma or a Virat Kohli came onto the scene and people got chatting about giving these new blokes a chance, I joined them in the clatter. When the question arose on who should make way for these young turks, I thought of you. You can’t hold me guilty for believing that I wouldn’t miss you. You never left the scene to make me miss your absence. To play some 93-odd test matches on a trot since debut, you hardly ever gave us a chance to see an Indian team without you.
3. You had no say in the team. I remember how they shuffled your batting order and gave you the gloves in the run up to the 2003 World Cup. You were never asked, it seems, but just told. Why for once did you not tell the powers-that-be that you are a test cricketer of repute, why didn’t you ever throw your weight around? May be, because when others were looking to preserve their careers by taking centrestage on Indian pitches and hiding backstage on foreign batting tracks, you chose to risk your lifeline. Each time they gambled with your career, you came out with a fortune.
4. I am one of those myopic Indian fans who held a grudge against you each time you dropped a catch, unmindful of the fact that no one in the history of the game has more catches to his credit than you. I have cursed you for dropping the few, have I thanked you yet for the hundreds you held?
5. I think of Lords and remember a certain Saurav Ganguly, I think of Taunton (1999 World Cup) and remember the same name; I flash my mind to the Eden Gardens (2001) and remember a Very Very Special player and when I probe deeper, I can only think of Tendulkar’s 186 against New Zealand in Hyderabad. Where were you when these feats were being achieved? History tells us, you were right there. You have always played the neglected hero, but history is kind enough to record your heroics. Years later, generations to come will remember you as the last puritan to have played the Game of Cricket.
6. You never believed that charity (of runs) begins at home. When your contemporaries were hogging the limelight on sterile Indian pitches by tonking 200s and 300s, you most often had little time, just about enough, to complete a century. But, when the same players went abroad, their appetite for runs dried. Their 200s and 300s ceased, but what remained constant was you, and your willow making the 22-yards your own. To have the highest batting average for the country in Test matches won overseas elevates you to greatness. At least now, let this nation of cricket fanatics take a bow!

You faced 31,258 balls, the highest in the game’s history, to amass some 13,000-odd runs, the second highest in the game’s history. May be it just never occurred to us that you were busy at work too, while your other colleagues’ natural brilliance stole the show.

As the press conference in the Chinnaswami Stadium drew to a close today, it perhaps brought a shocking closure for several cynical and thankless Indians. At 39, you have learnt to deal with fans like me; I am not sure whether, at 25, I have learnt to deal with the absence of a selfless man like you.
At No.3, you will forever be mera No.1 . Stride on Gentleman, you will be missed!