Mohali ton on Dravid’s mind

Dravid, who saved India from disaster against Sri Lanka, believes his last year's Chandigarh ton helped him escape the axe

Mohali ton on Dravid's mind

Dravid, who saved India from disaster against Sri Lanka, believes his last year's Chandigarh ton helped him escape the axe

Rahul Dravid, the Mr Crisis of Indian cricket, has gone through the most torrid phase of his international career in the last two years. Not only did he struggle to get the big knocks that are expected of him but he also appeared to have been grilled way too harder than usual when it came to scoring runs.

With this backdrop, Dravid's unbeaten 177 on the first day of the opening Test against Sri Lanka yesterday, which pulled India to safety from a precarious 32 for four, becomes all the more special.

Fearing the worst
Just before the selection for the Sri Lanka Tests, Dravid had said in an interview that had it not been for his century against England in Mohali last December, he wouldn't have taken the flight to New Zealand earlier this year. Last year's four-match Test series against Australia was a quiet one for him as so was the tour of Sri Lanka.

The Bangalorean entered the crease seven months after India's last Test outing. It appeared as if Dravid had set aside all the forgettable memories of the last two years.

In fact, he was so fluent during his 251-ball knock, studded with 26 boundaries and a six, that he almost matched Yuvraj Singh's pace during their 125-run fifth wicket stand and then outpaced Mahendra Singh Dhoni during the 224-run stand for the next wicket.

Uncharacteristic
In more ways than one, it was quite an uncharacteristic knock for Dravid, who eventually helped India gain an upper hand at stumps with the scoreboard reading 385 for six. One, he scored at a strike rate of 70-plus and more importantly, he never went into a shell even after India saw four top-order batsmen perishing in the first 45 minutes of the match.

During the course of the day, he first surpassed Steve Waugh's tally of 10,927 Test runs to become the fifth highest run-getter in the world and then joined the elite 11,000-club minutes before stumps.

"It's nice to get this feeling of batting the way I am. I've been through some tough times for a couple of seasons. I thought the flow has sort of come back this year a little bit for me personally in various forms of the game. I'd say it was probably one of my most fluent efforts over the last few seasons," Dravid said.

But what Dravid was thrilled about was the manner in which his 27th century gaped the team out of a hole along with Yuvraj and Dhoni.

"I knew that the first session was about getting through to lunch and not losing any more wickets. I remember telling Yuvi that let's put up a partnership here, let's hang in here for a while, let's settle us down. If we get a 30-40 run partnership,u00a0 we could set the platform," he said.

Setting it up
"Essentially, I think the first session was about setting up a base. The second was about consolidating it and the third one was about sort of cashing in. You're set, you've got a hundred, you really want to make it count," Dravid said.

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