Did you know that the troubled Rahul Dravid of Indian cricket played his only T20 International match just to facilitate MSD’s plans and go against his will? it’s really true!
The match I am talking about was held in Manchester and it was the only T20I of that series between India and England. India had already lost all the 4 Test matches in that series and it was extremely difficult for the batsmen to counter the swing and pace of the England fast bowlers. Before the T20 match at Old Trafford, captain MS Dhoni and team management had approached Rahul Dravid to play that T20 International for the team as Mahi wanted to play that match with seven batsmen. Rahul Dravid, who had earlier decided that he would not play for Team India in the T20 format, had agreed to play that match for the team’s sake. Although India could not win that T20 but Dravid played a brilliant innings of 31 runs in 21 balls.
This story has a foreword that dates back to 2007. India had crashed out of the first round of World Cup cricket in the West Indies and the cricketers were preparing for the one-off ODI against Scotland. The seven-match series against England was approaching and the cricketers were in a destructive mindset. The team’s three senior-most cricketers Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid were planning the revival of Indian cricket after coming out of shock from World Cup cricket. He firmly believed that he had a few good years of cricket left in him and that he could still fulfill his dream of winning the World Cup for India.
Sourav once talked to me about this incident in a conversation with me in 2007.
It was a breakfast table meeting and a consensus was reached among the three Indian stalwarts that they would not play the shortest format of the game and would leave it to the youngsters while continuing to play in Tests and ODIs. They came to that consensus because they felt that T20 is a format that suits the youth.
Sachin had earlier played a T20 match for India in Johannesburg in 2006.
Although IPL came later and all three played for different franchises, Sachin never played T20I for the country again. In 2010, when Makhaya Ntini played his farewell match for South Africa at the historic Musa Mabida Stadium in Durban and requested Sachin to play, the Master Blaster did not agree to be included in the playing XI. He came and saw the moment and was not a part of the playing XI.
Since the trio decided to stay out of the T20 format, the legend never again appeared for Team India in the shortest format of the game, until Dravid agreed to play for the country in Mahi and the team management’s request in Manchester. Didn’t happen.
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