By Atul
December 20 2006

Rahul Dravid's captaincy style has been criticized by some as passive and lacking in inspiration. Yet, he has led the team to unprecedented victories. I’m not emotional about any individual player, and I have no favorites.

But I don’t like to devalue past or present players and captains, because I believe in Team India. I believe that whatever results you get now will lend a historical perspective in the future.

Here, I will avoid drawing a comparison with Sourav Ganguly, and focus more on Rahul Dravid as captain.

With an away Test series win in the West Indies after 35 years, and now a first-ever Test win in South Africa, Rahul will definitely be written as one of the best captains India has produced.

He is probably more of a team player than anyone else in the team. Rahul strongly believes that there should be a solid contribution from every player, rather than only a few.

Over his entire career, he has been a true professional. As captain, he doesn’t have any favorite players and hence provides backing to nobody in the selection. He can be a tough decision-maker when necessary, as shown by his declaration in Pakistan when Sachin Tendulkar was at 194, or when he played five bowlers in the past, or opted to bat first in Johannesburg on a difficult pitch after winning the toss last week.

Dravid is not an overtly emotional person, which most Indian players with varied backgrounds would like to see in their captain. Perhaps that is why he is not able to motivate players.

Under Dravid, results are best when individual players perform their respective tasks, and his plans are realized. It is when several players are unable to fulfill their roles that the result can be catastrophic. And when that happens, he seems unable to motivate them or fire them up to get the expected performance out of them.

Dravid can be more successful in the future if the team subscribes to his philosophy and every player becomes more self-motivated, as he is.