Rahul Dravid, who represented India in 344 ODIs, revealed that he had insecurities about whether he was a "good enough ODI player" during the beginning of his career.
Former Indian captain Rahul Dravid is widely regarded as one of the best batsmen in the country's rich cricket history. Dravid is one of the few players in the world to have scored more than 10,000 runs in both, Tests and ODIs.
However, Dravid has now revealed that he had been "insecure" about his international career during his initial days. While the batsman cemented his place in the longest format ever since he made his debut, it took him some time to impress in the ODIs.
"There have been phases in my international career [when I felt insecure],” Dravid said. “I was dropped from the ODI team in 1998. I had to fight my way back in, spent a year away from the game," Dravid told India's women's team head coach WV Raman in a conversation on his YouTube channel.
“There were certain insecurities then as well about whether I’m a good enough one-day player or not because I had grown up wanting to be a Test player, was coached to be a Test player – hit the ball on the ground, don’t hit the ball in the air, coaching like that. You sort of worry whether you had the skills to be able to do it.”
Dravid further said that due to the absence of cash-rich leagues during the time, it was significantly difficult for young cricketers to sacrifice career in studies for the sport.
“I have gone through many phases of insecurities,” he said.
“Growing up as a young cricketer in India is not easy, there’s a lot of competition and especially in the time that I grew up in, where there were only the Ranji Trophy and the Indian team, there was no IPL. Even the money in Ranji Trophy was so poor that there was always that constant challenge because you’ve given up a career in studies," he said.
The former Indian captain further said that he took the risk to forego his studies, and that if he had failed as a cricketer, "there wasn't too much to fall back on."
“I was not bad in studies, so I could’ve easily gone on to potentially do an MBA or a CA, which I kind of forego to have a career in cricket and if the cricket didn’t work out there wasn’t too much to fall back on," said the former Indian cricketer who represented India in 164 Tests and 344 ODIs.
“So there was a level of insecurity at that age, which actually helps me a lot in working with these younger players, because I can identify their challenges and some of the insecurities that they go through.”
