The silent fulcrum around which Indian cricket is set to pivot

Rahul Dravid brings valuable qualities to the coach’s job — rigour, adaptability, an eye for the big picture, an appetite for the small details, and a complete lack of bombast. He will need them, for the challenge he faces is stiff — add to the country’s trophy cabinet while navigating a transition

In a world steeped in the meagre words of Twitter and WhatsApp status updates offering quick peeks into frenetic lives, Rahul Dravid is an anachronism. Not for him this rush to compress everything at the speed of light, he would rather marinate his thoughts. During his playing days, he tended to pause ahead of Tests, having slow lunches and just getting into the rhythms of the five-day format.

Even before magazines wrote about the slow-life, Dravid did that, living the moment and refusing to become a part of rush-hour modernity. He was his own man but equally remained a vital cog in a team-sport like cricket. Performance under relentless pressure and the measured word off the field defined him ever since he made the stiff upper lip at Lord’s quiver after walking in the 90s during his debut Test in 1996.

And now, as he eases into the role of being the senior Indian men’s team coach, he will bring those traits that defined him — rigour, discipline, team-values and the ability to also recognise that in the end this is just a sport. Dravid in the coach’s seat seemed pre-ordained ever since he moved away from the commentators’ box and chose mentorship, be it in the Indian Premier League or his eventual guiding role at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru.