Today at Chandigarh, two old friends, Rahul Dravid and Ricky Ponting, will be in rival dug-outs. And, like always, they will fiercely guard the interest of the IPL teams they coach or mentor. But be brave to bet your heirloom, on TVs capturing the eventuality of Ponting walking up to Dravid to check on his fractured leg and the two sharing a laugh.
The coaching corner of the Punjab Kings vs Rajasthan Royals IPL game has a backstory with more grace and gravitas, than any match-plot a T20 game can ever throw up.
A week before this Mohali game, Ponting was a guest at The Indian Express Idea Exchange. It was one Dravid-question that turned the clock back to the era when the two batting greats, both No.3 batsmen, finished their Test careers with incredible, but eerily similar, numbers – 13,000 something runs in about 160 Tests at averages of around 52.
Reporters usually have a set-up to squeeze in a difficult question, it’s an alleged easier route to walk the celebrity, past a thorny place. So to get Ponting’s view on Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s uncertain future, the Dravid nudge was thought of.
Back in 2008, after a home series against Australia where Dravid had just one 50 in 4 Tests, Ponting reached out to the aging Indian and convinced him to stay on. And thus the question that roughly went as: After the recent BGT disaster, would he have repeated that 2008 Dravid pep talk to Rohit and Virat?
In hindsight, it can be said that with Ponting, the ultimate Aussie straight-talker, the sweetening of the tough question was a waste of effort. Anyways, he would have answered. Though, the Dravid mention did bring to fore that rare and rapidly growing extinct professional quality that the two possess. It’s called mutual respect and it shouldn’t be confused for that in-vogue almost automated reciprocity in ‘liking’ posts of peers.
Here’s Ponting’s version of the events that unfolded at the end of the series where Dravid had just one 50 in 4 Tests and the calls of his ouster in the media were getting louder.
“Rahul and I have always got along really well. We were fierce competitors, both No.3 batters for our countries for a long time. Both ended up having quite similar Test match records. See for players like him, class and quality don’t leave. It sometimes gets buried under a lot of other stuff, and certain people can’t find their way out of those holes.
“I just had a chat with him (Dravid) and said ‘Look, … forget about all the external stuff, believe in yourself and go back to the things that have made you a good player. If you focus on those things and don’t worry about the little things, I am sure you can finish off your career on a strong note’. That’s all I said. He went away and did that. And guess what when I was at the end of my career, and didn’t make as many runs as I would have liked, he was the first on the phone and made me aware of the things I had told him.”