Can Rahul Dravid Get The Team India To Win The Elusive ICC Title?

The new team India coach knows a thing or two about revelling in trying conditions. Can Rahul ‘the wall’ Dravid bring new focus to the team and get them to win the elusive ICC title?

- Vikrant Gupta

THE YEAR WAS 1996, the Indian team was in crisis with mercurial opener Navjot Singh Sidhu revolting against skipper Mohammad Azharuddin and walking out of India’s England tour. The team management sent out Sourav Ganguly, still green behind the ears, to bat in a most intimidating setting, Lord’s, the home of Test cricket where cricketing fortunes are made and lost. By the third day, his debut century announced a future star to India.

India had in that series also dropped the seasoned Sanjay Manjrekar and handed out another debut, to Rahul Dravid, Ganguly’s teammate from the Under-19 and India A days. A day after Ganguly’s century, Dravid’s turn at the crease ended at 95, five short of a debut hundred even as the British commentators hailed the New India.

Almost 25 years on, Indian cricket has come full circle. While Ganguly sits on top as BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) president, Dravid, perennially the crisis man in Indian cricket, has been given a much more difficult job—to coach the Indian team. It becomes all the more strenuous in a country where every one of the 1.3 billion has a view on the team’s performance, the cacophony getting amplified by discourses on social media.

There is excitement. There is also another crisis that Dravid is walking into. Having lost two shots at an ICC title this year—the World Test Championship final in June and then crashing out in the league stages of the T-20 World Cup this week—India is grappling with a multi-billion dollar question: what does it take to win critical, knockout games and bring home that elusive ICC title? India hasn’t won one since the Champions Trophy in 2013.