Why is Rahul Dravid so underrated by the Indian media & public?

Rahul Dravid, one of my most favorite cricketers of all time, hit 177 runs  in a day’s play of test cricket, rescued India yet again from a terrible start, and crossed a monumental 11,000 runs in test cricket, all in one day.

Yet you never have anybody talking about him as often as some of the Indian media’s favorite celebrities.

You may ask, why this injustice? It’s all too easy to understand,  I‘ll tell you why:

• He never slapped his team-mate on a cricket field, or called his an opponent a monkey (official version is Teri Maa ki)
• He never got slapped by his team-mate (and hence he couldn’t cry on TV for getting slapped), never danced on a cricket field, and never spoke of himself in third person and said things like: “I think Rahul Dravid is a terrific guy!”
• He took a world record 184 catches in test cricket with a lot of ease, and no fuss. Little did he realize that unless he flaunted a new hairstyle or wig, and pump his fist looking at the camera, those are not counted as catches.  Poor guy!
• He’s always had the same boring hairstyle. No wigs, extensions, coloring, or perming. How boring!
• He was never involved in any serious rumors with bollywood starlets. Now that’s a terrible thing to do. How could you be so condescending towards the media and the eager public?
• He never leaked confidential emails; never ran to his government asking for support to get back into the team when he was dropped shamelessly (actually he should have, if a left-wing government batted for a left hander terribly out of form, wouldn’t you expect a right-wing government to support a right hander in pretty good form?)
• He never kissed his ex girlfriend in public at her birthday party. Hence nobody played his smooch a few thousand times on TV, and so he was never a media sensation.
• He did not have the attitude or the body to be shirtless a few hundred times in public, and do the same cool dude dance for the same song for twenty years
• He never bashed up a bowler screaming “Howzaatttt” in English, during test matches played in Mumbai. If he can’t speak Marathi, he has no business playing in Mumbai, does he?
• He never wrote a book called “Going Rogue: A cricketer’s life”
• He did not participate in Big Boss,  and hence nobody could have made a racist taunt at him
• He proved again and again that nice guys do not necessarily finish last
• And last, but the most important factor: He is Rahul Dravid and not Rahul Gandhi

Cheers!

Vasu