Cricket News

‘I needed to refresh and almost find a life outside of cricket’ – Rahul Dravid on the importance of switching off from the game

Apart from being the head coach of the current Indian team, Rahul Dravid is also one of the best batters the country has ever produced. He was a part of India’s ‘Fab 5’ alongside Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, and VVS Laxman. They formed the Indian Team’s batting line-up in the early 2000s.

On many occasions, Rahul Dravid proved to be the major big difference during that period. The right-hander often did the hard work of blunting the new ball and playing marathon knocks to allow the players around him to score at a decent pace. He played the anchor role which provided stability and solidity to the Men in Blue’s batting line-up.

Rahul Dravid was also someone who used to spend too much time thinking about his game at times even when the men in Blue weren’t playing. Speaking to Olympic gold medalist Abhinav Bindra on his podcast ‘In the Zone’, Dravid explained how he realized the importance of taking a mental break from the game.

“I used to spend a lot of energy even when I was not playing thinking about my game, worrying about it, and reflecting on it. In time I learned that was not necessarily helping my batting. I needed to refresh and almost find a life outside of cricket.”

Dravid also spoke about why a pretty laid back character like Virender Sehwag used to find it a bit easier to switch off from the game. The current Indian coach, on the other hand, had to learn its importance gradually.

“Honestly, I was never going to be like Viru (Virender Sehwag). He found it much easier to switch off because of his personality. But I started recognizing the red flags.”

“If you do all of that but are unable to switch off mentally, you are not going to have enough energy to play the game. Once I started recognizing that three or four years into my career, I started to make an effort to switch off a lot more and it helped me a lot.” Dravid added.