Different means, same end

Karat is from Manmohan Singh, and yet playing with the same objective, made a dreadful Test memorable.

Virender Sehwag is the racy thriller, Rahul Dravid the sweeping epic, Sehwag strings together some great skits, Dravid writes a thesis, Sehwag is instinctive, Dravid erudite. Sehwag will yodel like Kishore Kumar, Dravid sing Jagjit Singh’s ghazal. Both have their place and neither can be belittled. They make for a great buffet.

There is no doubt that ten thousand runs put you in an elite club. It means you have countered different conditions, conquered fitness issues, won over fatigue, travel, changes in your own personality and the little matter of opposition bowlers trying to knock your head off, as you pass through different stages in a career. There is a point of view, debatable, that if you play 120 Tests, ten thousand runs would be inevitable. It belittles the achievement. Not everyone is good enough to be selected 120 times by his country and average 55 over that period. It’s time to bury theories and stand up and applaud Rahul Dravid as one of the all-time greats, someone who has played with utmost dignity and has rarely given less than what he was capable of for his side. It is a combination that comes rarely.

Perhaps the best comment on Dravid’s great accomplishment came from another fine son of Bangalore, Gundappa Vishwanath who said Dravid was the better player of the two. It is a correct assessment but it is in making it that Vishwanath’s greatness lies. As a batsman, he was classy and honest and it is fantastic to see that those qualities have not deserted him in retirement when bitterness befriends people. I asked Dravid once how it felt to be better than the man he idolised. It is one of the most amazing moments in a person’s career and one that presents itself to very few. In that wonderfully respectful manner,...