How long a rope? - Inbox at Cricinfo

What is Sachin falls in such a patch? Dravid scored a 9 out of 10 in his "public patience account". What is Sachin's score? 10 out of 10? Actually no. I think Sachin will have more impatience to deal with than Dravid. More people will cry out for his head sooner. That is because of the public perception of his records: what more has he to achieve? And due to the expectations all of us have from him. A cricketer is measured with what is expected of him - so the yardstick is not really the same for everybody. A 5 match series where Sachin averages 30 will be seen as a disastrous series for the little master. I would keep Sachin at 7 out of 10. Laxman? 8 out of 10. Again low profile is the key. I mean level of expectation.

One common thing in all the above three is a warm feeling of gentlemanliness, polite down-to-earth perception of these pillars that we have, which they truly are. That is exactly the thing that Ganguly lacks, he is the aggressor with more enemies than the rest of the Indian team (in his time) put together. I would put Ganguly's patience account score at 3 out of 10. Whatever the patience account score is, one thing is sure: if all of these gentlemen, by some miracle is given 10 out of 10, they will come out of any bad patch, and rule the world again. So a small point to ponder is: when they are not playing well, it is we that matter, not them. They will keep on trying anyway. It is up to us really how long a run we are willing to give them. The ball lies in our court, not theirs.

Dravid scored 53 and 38 in sydney this year till bucknor got his wicket. he followed it with 93 in perth which was the highest individual score in the game (india won the match). He also scored 100 vs. sa in chennai(albeit on a flat pitch). so he had a spell of only 10 bad matches this year.A certain indian great batsman with initials SRT went through a period of 10 tests with just 387 runs at 23.8 average & only 2 fifties between(and including) matches vs. srilanka,ahmedabad,2005 and vs. sa,johannesburg,2007. After scoring century vs. srilanka in 2005, SRT had to wait for 3 years till he scored a ton against test nation except bangladesh(vs. aus in 2008) so if we could allow one great(SRT) such long time, there was no reason why another great should be denied the same. And for those asking for retirement on basis of age, lara, mcgrath, inzy are recent examples of those who have played till they are 37. Thankfully, the selection committee and dhoni have shown faith in Dravid(contd)

Further india needs to look at australia and learn a lesson from their mistake. Australia lost 3 greats mcgrath, warne and gilchrist in a short time and have struggled since then. While india has done well at home after ganguly and kumble's retirement, playing away is a different cup of tea! Note how harbhajan and yuvraj struggled in australia recently. Further, newzealand tour is next up and it is the only place india has not won since 2000. Dravid is the highest scorer overall in all away wins for india (1871 runs at 77.95). So until yuvraj or somebody else proves he is ready for the job, dravid is needed. Further how long a rope a player gets depends on how good or great he is, his away record, how bad the slump is, his age, how much the team needs him,is there another player as good as him ready to replace him and lastly the public support.

Nice article Koushik! The fact that you address public perception is unique, we think of it, but not so articulately. You are right on, they are professionals, they will keep trying anyway. We as spectators/supporters need to realize that when a cricket is in a bad patch they will do the upmost to get through it. It would be one thing if they didn't try, but folks like Dravid (especially him), Laxman, Tendulkar will keep prodding away. I thoroughly enjoyed Dravid's post-century interview, he said he knew he was almost there as he felt good in nets. He always gauges his form based on how he hits the ball in the nets, he knew that it wasn't too far off. I am a big Dravid fan, I never doubted him. Some other folks out there are huge Tendulkar fans, they will never doubt him. But we, fans, need to realize that form is temporary and class is permanent, Dravid and co will dig themselves out of the grave. We need to give them time to do so! Good work!

Can't accept the logic mate. Ultimately who survives and who not largely depends on the captain and selectors. If at all a win matters most it is to these people. How big a rope one gets depends on how much he matters to the teams win. Remember that Ganguly was not too much short on runs; Despite having quite a decent average he was dropped from both the one-day and test teams, because the runs he was making was not all contributing to the wins. One can keep scoring fifties and hundreds without any of them being match winning which is what Ganguly was doing. And Dhoni's judgement has been proven right with the one-day team without these people becoming world beaters.

In my personal view Dravid's long rope is more to appease a feeling of mass senior rejection. Dhoni only needs a reason now to plan Dravid's exit, and another bad series for team india is what he must be waiting for. Irrespective of Dravid regains his form or not, when that happens Dravid will be shown the door too!

mate cast your mind to certain series in 2005 India v/s pakistan when certain left hand batsman from where i guess you also come was batting in form of his life .. !!!making some ubelieable scores and so then how did he comeback and make all those runs in 2007 ?? there is never one size fits all so please accept it

I find this article very amusing... Dravid should have been dropped by the selectors from Indian team immediately after failing in sri Lanaka and the Australia series at home. Not only has Dravid stopped scoring runs but he also has been dropping easy chances in the slips for quite some time now.

The writer appears to suffer from selective amnesia as he tries to justify supporting Dravid based merely on his so-called 'gentlemanly' qualities which appeared to be strangely missing in Ganguly.

Other pundits call this quality in Ganguly as killer instinct or competitiveness. This is the reason Ganguly inspired players like Sehwag, Yuvraj,Harbhajan and Zahir khan as a captain. Dravid clearly lacked aggressive leadership qualities which made him a failure as a captain , especially in ODI when he ( along with his mentor Chappell) made us suffer the humiliation of losing to Bangladesh in the 2007 World cup.