Monday, May 12, 2008

Dear Rahul Dravid...

Yesterday at RBs hopelessly expensive birthday party someone said this to me:


" Teri haalat waisi hai jaise Rahul Dravid ki Indian Premier League mein!" -


"You're as out of place as Rahul Dravid in the Indian Premier League"

(Very loose translation and loses all punch that the hindi version has. To fully appreciate this, go to school and learn hindi. Come back here and enjoy the line. Ok?)

When people start using your name while making such comparisons, its high time you get some advice about what you should do. And who could Rahul turn to if not the most awesome brain this side of the Indian ocean (er..that would be me)

So responding to his anguished plea I wrote him a letter. And I wouldn't be too much an object of your adoration if I did not put up my correspondence with the rich and famous here (I've done it before: http://swappinglives.blogspot.com/2007/04/letter-to-katrina.html )



Dear Rahul (Jammy),

Thank you for your letter. I am doing quite well but will obviously refrain from asking you the corresponding question. Your condition is quite palpable here.

You've certainly managed to get yourself in quite a jam in this Twenty twenty format of cricket. And this is not the kind of jam that gets you endorsement dollars. This is the one that pretty much hits at the base of a decade long reputation earned through blood and sweat and mindnumbingly boring hours spent tapping the ball back to the bowler.

You're obviously quite out of your depth in this format where strike rate is the paramount statistic and average is laughed at. Add to that the love you've shown to all your fellow 20-20 (and even one day) rejects by taking them in your team. I mean seriously, what were you thinking? Any team which opens their batting with Wasim Jaffer and you in a short slam-bang format is pretty much doomed from the very onset. Add to that jaded players, weak fielders and slow fast bowlers (!) and you have the perfect recipe for being at the sheer bottom of the table where you find yourself right now.

I'll be frank with you here Rahul, your captaincy itself has been so lacking that I am forced to show you Shane Warne's captaincy in this tournament as an example. He started the tournament as a rank outsider with no big names (at that time) in his team. But he's never showed a sag in his shoulders. In impossible situations he looks like he hasn't even considered that his side may lose. To think so is blasphemous to him while you seem to be looking over your shoulder for upcoming and imaginary disaster all the time even when your team has its nose ahead.

Rahul, do us all a favour. Do yourself a favour and get out of this format. Some players are good for tests and some for short games. Please don't leave it for so long that the 'Wall's' fans remember not the gritty innings and the classic cover drives and picturesque flicks but the jaded and struggling slogger holding back tears in presentation ceremony after presentation ceremony while making piteous excuses.

Rahul, please step back graciously.

Regards,

Swapnil

2 comments:

Arun Meethale Chirakkal said...

Vow you said it, I was just wondering whether it's compulsory for every player to make an appearance in IPL. If put it in milder words twenty twenty is blatantly obscene. And it makes me really sad to see players like Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman playing twenty twenty and getting pooh poohed and cursed by people who don't know anything about the beauty of the game. Both these these players ar absolutely superb. Dravids square cuts, Laxman's glances, coverdrives...graceful they are. For me, an ardent admirer of stylish cricket these players represent a species on the verge of extinction. I just hate players who play a straight drive with a horizontal bat. It's nauseating to see such stuff. Good pice, love it. Thank you.

Swapnil said...

Arun: Thanks for your interesting comments :)And yes, i don't like Dhoni's horizontal bat swats, even if they do go to the boundary!