India vs Australia: Rahul Dravid, quiet man behind India's historic series triumph Down Under

Dravid is a former Indian captain and has seen some stupendous overseas victories against England (2007) and Pakistan (2003-04) and he has every right to feel happy about his successors keeping up a proud legacy. But there is another reason for Dravid to spot a satisfactory grin.

Dravid has seen many of the young Indian cricketers progress up close as the India Under-19, India A coach and now as the chief of the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru. The likes of Mohammad Siraj, Shubman Gill, Washington Sundar, Navdeep Saini, Shardul Thakur etc have played for India A and India U-19 under the watchful eyes of Dravid.

It was Dravid who made pitch with BCCI for reviving India A and Under-19 tours that at one stage had become a formality. Now, it has become the main feeder line to India’s senior team, and Dravid can take some credit for that. When India won the ICC U-19 World Cup in New Zealand under the tutelage of Dravid, Gill had played a big role in it, and the coach had then marked the right-hander for bigger things in future.

Talk about vision!

“Rahul bhai provides some very important inputs and we keep talking to him. His knowledge of the game is very important for all of us and he patiently listen to us and tells us a lot of things about the game, especially the mental aspects of it,” Siraj had said during an India A game against their South Africa counterparts in late 2018.

As the captain of India, Dravid was a big believer in developing young cricketers to safeguard India’s future as a cricketing power and as coach he continues that philosophy. A champion on and off the field.