Rahul Dravid, Scottie Pippen, and a Broken Mould

That parallel has run its course.

It hit me during one of the early episodes of The Last Dance. As Indians growing up in the 90s, we’ve known Jordan’s type: the otherworldly ability, the constant scrutiny, the overarching personality, and influence that extended well beyond his team’s change room. Then it hit me once more. We’ve known Pippen’s type too. I remember first encountering that analogy through an old article on Wisden’s monthly magazine. Dravid as the Pippen to Sachin’s Jordan isn’t a fresh perspective, but all these years later, maybe it merits a re-examination.

Looking back, the parallels are obvious. Rahul Dravid and Scottie Pippen played out entire careers, peerless in every way possible, as second-in-commands to possibly the greatest exponents of their craft. When the giants’ influence flickered — Jordan's because he wanted to flex his arms and Sachin’s because he couldn’t — Dravid and Pippen assumed leadership roles and became the glue which bound their teams. In episode 7 of The Last Dance, ex-Chicago Bulls point guard and current Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr speaks about Scottie Pippen as the calming influence in the Bulls change room when Jordan was away. Dravid’s captaincy tenure — sandwiched between Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble’s intensity — was probably similar. 

Both were key for key tactical changes and resulting successes for their teams. Scottie Pippen was the pivot around which Chicago Bulls successfully deployed Phil Jackson’s triangle offence; Rahul Dravid took up the wicketkeeping gloves in ODIs, allowing India to field a batting line-up strong and deep enough to take them to the finals of a World Cup.

But unlike Pippen for Jordan, Dravid meant much more for the Indian team that just a support system for Tendulkar. If there was one common denominator in India’s best Test performances outside their comfort zone between 1996-2011, it was Rahul Dravid. No Indian has been involved in more Test victories outside Asia than him. Dravid scored centuries in 34 Test matches; India lost only 4 of them, three in his last six months as an international cricketer.

In the Test whites, Dravid often played knocks that most batters would give an arm and a leg for, but was happy to step aside and let someone else bask in the sunshine and confetti. At Headingley and Kolkata, you could safely wager that Sachin and Laxman don’t play their epics if Dravid doesn’t play one of his own. When Sehwag was bludgeoning all those massive centuries against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, redefining the role of an opener, Dravid was often at the other end, wearing opposition bowlers down.

The story was much the same in white-ball cricket. In 1998, Sachin Tendulkar’s annus mirabilis, Dravid was dropped from the ODI team because he couldn’t score at a good enough pace. The following year, he went to the World Cup in England and returned as the tournament’s highest run-scorer. That year, India overtook their highest ever ODI total thrice. On all three occasions, Dravid scored centuries — twice over 150 — and became the supporting actor in someone else’s show. Many years from now, observers of a certain vintage would have to remind a younger generation that Rahul Dravid, the Test cricket great, scored nearly 11000 ODI runs and became a foundation pillar for a successful team. Like Pippen, Dravid was arguably his craft’s greatest enabler.

“Micheal Jordan is the Greatest of All Time. No question.” - Scottie Pippen

"I would be the first one to admit that I'm not a complete player. There are very few. You have to make your own assessments, set your own standards. Sachin [Tendulkar] and [Brian] Lara are in a different league. For the rest of us mere mortals, it's a constant learning process. I know my strengths, just as I know my limitations. In the end, you have to be effective and choose a method that works for you and the team over a period of time.” - Rahul Dravid

The thing about genius is that even though it will take you off your chair, make you gasp and jump, it is also unstable. The predictability of steel takes longer to achieve and is often deemed dull. To become dependable, you probably sacrifice more than you can keep. Neither Dravid nor Pippen, gifted as they were, were quite sprinkled with stardust like Sachin and Jordan. Their graft was visible, as was the sweat required to do something Sachin and Jordan could probably do in their sleep. This article from 2012, which also centres on the Dravid-Pippen parallel, puts it succinctly - “When Tendulkar is talked about, the word genius gets thrown around. Rahul Dravid represents something more human. Something you can aspire to.”

But the similarities between Dravid and Pippen meet an end beyond the white line. Rahul Dravid stayed as far away from cameras and controversy as possible, maintaining a public profile that would begin and end at the cricket ground. He would not voluntarily sit out half a season or throw a fit because someone else got to hit the winning runs. It would also be near impossible today to get Dravid on camera dissecting old teammates and dressing room dynamics. In an era where washing dirty linen in public has almost become an auxiliary occupation, Dravid, when asked for a plausible title for a future autobiography, replied with “A book that was never written.” The man who courts criticism and deflects credit with the deftness of a champion number 3 batsman probably has more important things to do.

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It is Boxing Day 2018. Australia are playing India at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The series hangs at 1-1; India are batting first. In the 10 previous away Tests that year, India’s opening partnership has averaged 21 runs. Among the two new openers, chosen for this baptism of fire, one is Mayank Agarwal. Four hours later, India have a new long-term test opener.

India won that match — the eventual clincher in their first ever test series victory on Australian soil. The game will be remembered for Cheteshwar Pujara’s batting and Jasprit Bumrah’s bowling. Highlight reels will play that slower ball to Shaun Marsh on loop. But Mayank’s grit through the first morning will stay just as long in the memory of those who watched it. It was the kind of debut that would sound all too familiar to Dravid. 

Mayank Agarwal the T20 dasher was the product of his talent, but Mayank Agarwal the Test opener was purely Rahul Dravid’s creation from his stint with India-A. A couple of months prior to Mayank’s bow in Melbourne, a 19-year-old Prithvi Shaw, prodigiously talented but polished and moulded by Dravid in many ways, made his Test debut against West Indies at Rajkot. He scored a hundred, but more importantly, made batting look like a stroll in the park, as if he had been ready for international cricket for years.

Dravid is already shaping Indian cricket’s future through stints with age-group teams and now as the Director of Cricket Operations at the National Cricket Academy. He is no more the second banana.

Rahul Dravid has well and truly broken away from the Scottie Pippen territory. As I write this, he might just be coaching Indian cricket’s next Jordan.