In late 2010 when Australia visited India, Mitchel Johnson seemed to have got Rahul Dravid’s number. He would slant the ball across Dravid’s body forcing him to fall for it. Dravid would then nick it to the wicketkeeper or to the waiting slips cordon. This was, perhaps, the first time Dravid’s technique looked fallible. Never before in Dravid’s career, had he fallen prey to identical deliveries. Experts had a field day in writing him off saying that age had finally caught up with him, since the reflexes were not as sharp anymore. Little did they realize that his lack of form had nothing to do with his reflexes or age but a minor technical glitch that had found its way into his impeccable technique.
His trigger movement (the initial movement before the ball is delivered) took him back and across, quite often, which was resulting in his forward stride going a lot more across than he would have preferred. Once the front-foot was planted far outside the line of off-stump, he’d be forced to play at deliveries that were meant to be left alone.
The easier and more plausible option for Dravid, back then, was to ignore the sequence of similar dismissals as a blip in form and stick with what had worked for him so far. But Dravid , the perfectionist wasn’t going to take inaccuracies in his stride. He went a lot deeper into the science of batting looking for ways to not only get rid of that particular problem but also add another dimension to his batting.
Today, Dravid has completely eliminated that trigger movement and instead remains still till the ball is delivered. Getting rid of the trigger movement, which is only a few inches, might not seem too much of an adjustment but believe you me, it takes a lot of time to do that. Trigger movement is supposed to get the body in motion and also initiate a chain of movements to allow the body and the bat to come in the right position at the right time. The moment you tinker with the first step, the timing of everything else goes awry.
Dravid did that and found a second wind to his career. He was no longer falling for the deliveries pitching outside off-stump while lesser movement provided him the room to free his arms.
Nowadays, he doesn’t get behind the line of the ball often, instead remains beside it, which allows him to play a lot more aggressively than he ever did in the earlier part of his career.
Unfortunately, the flip side of staying besides the ball is that the moment you get beaten by the lateral movement off the surface or misread the line, there isn’t a second line of defense. This increases the chances of getting ‘bowled’ manifold. Hence, Dravid’s recent dismissals don’t surprise me as much as they have bothered the entire nation.
Dravid is paying a huge price for his success in this second phase. His technical prowess has made the ‘bowled’ dismissal unfathomable. But, we must understand that getting bowled is not an earth-shattering event. A batsman gets out when he’s beaten by a bowler and hence reading too much into one particular mode of dismissal isn’t justified. You lose something to get something.
Tags: Australian Tour, Mitchell Johnson, Rahul Dravid
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 at 1:28 pm
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I wish all those tweeple who keep ranting non stop about doing away with the golden generation read this and became a bit wiser before startin on their rant again…thanks to aakash i end up with more knowledge than before after reading this….guys pls stop bitching the team like every other lame ignorant person and try seein some sense….is it just that the indian team is bad or that the aussies are incredibly gd? i’d go with the latter….
A very well written piece, Aakash. Shameful to see how one makes a way of dismissal as a way to judge whether his time for retirement has come or not. People, and actually the media, never misses out of chances to make useless topics out of anything.
That’s a good analysis Akash. Also did you notice that he has become more fluent in his batting after he tinkered with that trigger movement. I am sure Dravid will go back to the drawing board and come back stronger than before. I only wish people don’t discourage him and force him to call it quits before he do it on his own. He is too good a cricketer to be pushed around. And I believe he has got at least two years in him.
Wonderful article. This could come from only a person who breathes and studies cricket. Thanks a lot Aakash.
Hope the team does well!!!!
Cheers!
Really a good article on Dravid’s recent dismissals…..
Even Dravid is confident and not panicking which is a good thing….
A must read for all Dravid fans and critics….
Interesting! But now the bigger Q is how did he manage to survive (thrive actually) 14 years in international cricket before some mediocre bowler exposed the glitch ?
Beautiful!! A common fan of Cricket would hardly be aware of these technicalities.
Why u don’t join ICC’s technical committee!:)
Please send this to Dravid and let’s see how he himself look at it.
I shall do that
Thanks.
Quite a detailed and well thought analysis, Akash. And I completely agree with your point that a bowled and a caught behind would have the significance, as the batsman was beaten in any case by the bowler. Just wanted to add here, that it has been observed in the previous few test series, that Dravid was getting caught behind often and hence on seaming, swinging conditions, he made some adjustment in his technique so that he covers the swing well. As a result he is extra-compensating on such deliveries. The thing that also matters in his case, is the great student that he is of the game, he tries it too hard to work on everything that he finds wrong.. A false shot, an incorrect movement or getting to the line of the ball.
I believe Australian bowlers also did their homework very well. They must have seen videos of Dravid getting bowled 3 out of 5 times in the home series vs West Indies. And then bowled closer to the stumps rather than outside off which England bowlers did in the summer. Dravid handles swing and seam movement outside off very well and survived that but Aussie bowlers bowled a nipping line, stumps to stumps.
Dravid getting clean bowled…especially beaten on the outside edge is a clear and unambigous sign of reflexes or vision problem.
He is fraction of a second late in covering the line of the ball….makes for a sepctacular looking dismissal…but unfortunately is a clear indicator his time is up.
add to that nearly a catch every two innings that he spills.
He is looking like Gundappa Vishwanath like sorry figure in his last series against pak in early 1980s
This Dravid’s issue wasn’t so pronounced earlier…..on pitches in India or WI…where the ball neither moves as much nor comes as fast of the picth….or in Eng where it does seam but is still slow of the pitch.
The aussie pitches have ripped him open….both lietrally and figuratively
He can still probably go one for a season or two on indian pitches…but it is sad to see our world beating heros scartch and struggle.
He must hand his boots…….and it would still be a timely end to a magnificient career.
regards
dear brother
i never saw this kind of nice articulate article in recent past, you should be appreciated for closely examining the technical flaws in worlds greatest batting technician
Thanks