Why are the gals going crazy over Rahul Dravid?
Prem Panicker in Bangalore
"Raaaahhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuulllllllllllllllllllllllllll!"
The ullulating cry, rising from a couple of hundred feminine throats,
is constant, demanding, deafening.
Rahul Dravid, with the positioning sense of a chess grandmaster,
places himself as far away from the stand on the right of the pavilion
at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium as possible -- for it is in these stands
that the female fans, mostly young collegians by the look of them, are
gathered.
The new star of Indian cricket -- and make no mistake, even with Sachin
Tendulkar present at the ground, it is Rahul the fans want -- is very
visibly embarrassed by this public display of adulation.
So great is Dravid's appeal that it rubs off on anyone with whom the
star has even a tenuous contact. Thus when, after a brief conversation
with him, I walk out of the ground to the pavilion for a drink of
water, I am peremptorily called over to the stand where the females
are. "Do you know Dravid?" "Can you get me his autograph?" "We want
him to pose for some pictures, can you please ask him to come here?"
I plead my inability. And, in turn, ask just what it is about Dravid's
game that attracts them. "Oh, he is soooooooooo cute!!!" gushes one
young collegian. "Yes, but how about his game, do you watch him play?"
"Yesssss!" goes the girl. "He has a way of pouting when he bats, it's
so sexyyyy!"
I give up, and walk away.
Meanwhile, Dravid's star status -- and his own reaction to it -- seems
to provide his colleagues much amusement. Ajay Jadeja -- another favourite
of the girls -- in particular takes delight in ribbing his team-mate.
From where he is giving catching practise to Nilesh Kulkarni,
Azharuddin and Kumble, Jadeja suddenly yells out Dravid's name. And
when Rahul looks towards him, Jadeja points immediately behind him, to
the female contingent, and grins, "Not me... THEY are calling you!"
Rahul suddenly gets interested in the fielding practise at the other
end of the ground, under Madan Lal's supervision, and heads off in
that direction... prompting laughter from Jadeja and Azhar and a wry
grin from Kumble.
One thing is very clear -- the camp does extend from 7 in the morning
to 2.30 in the afternoon, but if the impression you get is of a bunch
of grim, dedicated cricketers honing themselves relentlessly to a
state of match-fitness, forget it. This is a very relaxed,
all-friends-together kind of camp, an opportunity, apparently, for
some casual male bonding in salubrious conditions.
The early morning session is perhaps the only time when there is a
business-like look to the proceedings. At 7.30 sharp, fitness expert
Tej Kishan Kaul whistles his charges into the middle of the ground,
splits them up into groups of ten, and puts them through a two hour
spell of exercises that begin slow, and develop in time into
lung-busting, muscle-stretching levels.
The mandatory stretching and limbering up is followed by step
workouts, with the players being made to run up and down the pavilion
steps to Kaul's time-keeping claps.
Follows a rather unusual business, involving each group standing in a
line, a foot of space separating one from the next. A long heavy iron
pipe is hoisted overhead, and all the players in the line hold on to
it with both hands. At a call from Kaul, the players strain to push
the pipe forward, and at the next call reverse direction and pull
back. Sort of like tug of war, only with a pipe and overhead, instead
of at waist height.
Then there is some business involving plastic chairs, over which the
players straddle, stretch their calves, and such like... and that in
turn leads on to a series of short sprints... and on to...
Like I said, it is relentless, and exhausting. And judging by the
expression of the players, a regimen they are most definitely unused
to.
That coach Madan Lal goes through the workout with his wards is a
given, Madan being a bit of a fitness freak. What provokes my own
amusement is the sight of the orotund Ali Irani being put through the
same paces as the boys. "He is going to be with the boys, so let him
learn the exercises, then he can keep an eye on them when they are
doing it," explains Kaul, rather grimly.
Something in his tone of voice seems to indicate a sense of
dissatisfaction, so I probe gently. "See," explains Kaul, a graduate
in physical fitness, biomedicine and related aracana from Leipzig,
"physical fitness -- competitive fitness -- is not acquired in nine
days. And whatever the gains are here, if the boys don't keep it up,
if they go back to their lax routines once the camp is over, then this
whole thing will become a waste of time."
Does that mean Kaul is advocating a permanent fitness trainer for the
Indian team? "Definitely," he says. "Cricket is no longer an amateur
sport. For a player to perform to his potential, he has to be very
fit, both physically and mentally, at all times. Having a nine day
camp, then forgetting all about it for the next few months, is not a
solution. I think a physical trainer should be attached to the team,
365 days in the year."
Even during the off season? "Certainly. What I would do, if I were the
permanent trainer, is, at the end of the season I would give each
player a schedule of workouts for him to do at home. And I would tell
him that on specified days, I will visit him to test his condition
over specific parameters -- speed, endurance, hand-eye coordination,
strength... the routine wouldn't be designed to keep the players at
match fitness, but to maintain them just below that level, so when the
new season begins, a short, strenuous camp will lift them to
competitive levels again."
Coach Madan Lal, seated in a nearby chair keeping an eye on his wards
as they go through batting and bowling practise in the nets, nods
agreement. "Cricket is a professional sport today, you know, it is not
enough simply to make money on sponsorships and such things. The
professional spirit you show when it comes to such things should also
be there in your training and in everything you do on the ground,"
Madan says.
Which prompts me to ask Kaul what shape he found his charges in when
he landed in the camp. "Well, they are okay for say club cricketers --
but honestly, they were way below the level of international sportsmen
when I took over here."
And in nine days, he hopes to make the side take the quantum leap into
the big league?
"Look," Kaul says, sounding a shade defensive, "I have been asked only
to prepare them for this Asia Cup. What I am doing is giving them a
set of exercises that will work on muscles they don't normally bother
about. Right now, their way of working out is very amateur, each
person does his own thing. That is why they have all these niggling
injuries. What I am doing is strengthening the injury prone areas of
each player, also helping them build speed and endurance -- at least,
as much as is possible during such a brief camp."
Clearly, the trainer -- who while at work seems dedicated and dead keen
-- is cynical about the whole idea of instant fitness.
"I have been telling the Board we need a full-time fitness coach, what
more can I do?" shrugs Madan Lal.
Is Kaul good enough to fill that role?, I ask the Indian manager. Or
do we need to import someone more au courant with modern technology? I
mean, iron pipes, plastic chairs and such are hardly state of the art
equipment, are they?
"Kaul is doing well with what has been provided to him. If they
haven't given modern equipment that is not his fault," says Madan Lal.
"It is not a question of Indian trainer or foreign trainer, it is a
matter of getting someone who knows his work and appointing him on a
long-term contract."
Obviously, Madan Lal is rather unhappy at not being given a full time
trainer for the team.
This prompts me to ask J Y Lele, who admits that a request from the
team coach is before the BCCI, pending a decision. "We are looking
into it," says the newly installed Board secretary.
But surely the issue of whether or not to appoint a trainer --
something we've been hearing about for over a year now -- does not
merit debate and discussion as, say, the question of whether India
should go in for nuclear weapons?
"It is not a matter of simply saying yes or no," says Lele. "A person
has to be picked, budgets allocated... these things take time."
How much time?
"We will be deciding soon," says Lele.
How soon? I persist.
"I have just taken over, there are other things also on my plate, I
cannot give you a definite date, sorry," says the Board secretary, now
seeming a bit miffed by my persistence.
I wander back out to the ground. It is now 11, and the change from the
professionalism of the fitness workouts is as startling as the silence
following a thunderclap. In one part of the ground a plastic stump has
been set up. A few of the players are lined up away from it. One by
one, they run forward, field a ball rolled towards them and take a shy
at the stumps.
I watch for 15 minutes and see only two direct hits -- one, ironically,
by Madan Lal himself while the other is by Kambli, who promptly breaks
into a little jig. Each of the hits is greeted with ironic cheers from
the fans thronging to watch the fun. Meanwhile, the players who fail
with their throws seem totally unabashed. A shrug and grin about
covers their reactions as they lope gently back to take their places
in the line again.
At another corner of the ground, Jadeja is slamming balls up into the
air for his team-mates to practise high catches. After a while, Kumble
-- leading the "boys" in the absence of Sachin Tendulkar who has
returned to Bombay, en route to London for the meeting of
international captains -- asks Jadeja to give slip-catching practise.
Surprising -- the three who make the slip cordon are Azharuddin, Dravid
and newbie Nilesh Kulkarni. Azhar -- natty in Versace training trousers
and t-shirt -- is as good as ever, earning cheers from the crowd for
some remarkable takes. Dravid is safe and sure -- but what he is doing
practising slip catching when he never stands in that position, I have
not a clue about. As for Nilesh, one thing is for sure -- the slip
cordon is definitely not his spiritual home. The tall, gangly lad
appears to have problems getting down in time to take low catches.
Which, again, makes me wonder, why make him practise for the
specialist position, when he clearly isn't cut out for it?
In any event, there is an air of casualness about the whole thing,
players wandering off and on at will, laughing, joking, waving to the
crowd and indulging in little byplays with each other. Not quite what
you would see if, say, the Kiwis or the South Africans were on the
field and gearing up for an important tournament at the start of the
season.
"We are not used to hard work," sighs Kaul. "The boys, they say, arre,
eight hours non-stop, yeh kya hai. They should realise that they will
be playing eight hours non stop, so it is a good idea to train the
same way."
A break for refreshments, and the "serious' business begins as Dravid
and Ganguly take their places in the two nets. Each batsman faces two
medium pacers and two spinners for 20 minutes, before giving place to
the next.
While the likes of Prasad, Kuruvilla and Kumble are obviously bowling
well within themselves, newbies Nilesh Kulkarni and Debashish Mohanty
look dead keen, apparently trying to impress everyone with their
abilities.
Nilesh is a gangly lad with a loping run in, a high arm action and a
rather pronounced loop in the air. If his bowling at the nets is any
indication, he does not rely on flight so much as his height, bringing
the ball down steeply, hitting the deck and getting bite and turn.
"His angle is what makes it difficult to go out and hit him," says
Sidhu, whose penchant for going down the track to spinners is a
trademark. "He has a good loop, and gets sharp turn when he really
hits the deck."
Nilesh is visibly shy and unusued to journalists chatting him up. "I
had a good Ranji season last year, played well especially in the
final, helped Bombay win," he says. "No, I didn't think about getting
into the side, I don't think about such things... I just go there and
do my best."
Debashish Mohanty, bowling to Ganguly, comes across as a brisk medium
pacer with a slingy type of action. Given that, his stock ball is
obviously the one coming in to the right hander. Occasionally, he runs
in close to the stumps and makes the ball go the other way off the
seam -- but the change of approach makes that easy to spot, and Azhar --
batting after Ganguly -- clips him comfortably off his pads each time
Mohanty tries the away swinger. "He is young, he can learn with
experience," says Madan Lal when I ask him what he thinks of Mohanty.
The debutant himself has little to say -- in fact, he seems to shy away
from questions. "I am happy to become the first Indian player from
Orissa," he says. "What can I say? I hope to do well, if given a
chance."
Does he think that with Kuruvilla and Prasad in the squad, he will get
to play? "I don't know," he says. "I hope to get a chance to prove
myself." And with that, off he lopes to chase after a ball he didn't
need to field -- an obvious ploy to get away from being asked any more
questions.
Meanwhile, those not directly involved with batting or bowling are
taking it easy, signing autographs, chatting up visitors...
The most in-demand players among the fans are Jadeja, Ganguly and
Sidhu. A section of the male fans yells for Kumble to come over and
sign their slips of paper, but the Indian vice-captain these days
seems to have a perpetual scowl on his face, and is in no mood to
oblige.
Dravid, meanwhile, finishes his stint at the nets. And walks back
towards the pavilion -- the cue for his fans to start their yelling
again.
Dravid glances hesitantly in their direction, shrugs, hands his bat
and gloves over to a security type and walks over towards the stands
to oblige the autograph hunters.
Flashbulbs click, autograph books by the dozen are thrust under his
nose.. Dravid, eyes down, signs them mechanically, occasionally
glancing up to respond to a question. And having signed a couple of
dozen autographs, he breaks off abruptly and runs briskly up the ramp
leading to the players room.
"Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahuuuuuuuuuuuulllllllllllllllllll!"
The cry is shrill, disappointed... there are dozens more autograph
hunters left unsatisfied, while the lucky few sport big grins.
Oblivious, the new-found star of Indian cricket vanishes into the
interior of the dressing room... and as if on cue, a majority of the
girl fans begin trickling out of the stand and towards the exit...
"No, no, I am not a sex symbol or anything," grins Rahul Dravid when I
twit him about this later. "They only want our autographs... not just
mine."
Yeah, right!
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