‘I was never going to be like Viru’: Rahul Dravid speaks out on his process, his mental preparation – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

Rahul Dravid has been a synonym for patience, perseverance and for making the most out of his talent through sheer hard work. He remained the glue in the Indian batting that allowed the other stroke-makers to play their game. The perfect Test batter, Dravid has never shied of shedding light on the number of hours he had to put in to achieve the desired success on the field.

Dravid has said that he made it very important to switch off at the correct time in order to stay focused and put in the hard work during the game. “I used to spend a lot of energy even when I was not playing thinking about my game, worrying about it, and reflecting on it. In time I learned that was not necessarily helping my batting. I needed to refresh and almost find a life outside of cricket,” Dravid said when he was speaking to India’s first individual Olympic gold medalist Abhinav Bindra in his podcast ‘In the Zone’.

He also went on to add that he could never start to score freely like his teammates Virender Sehwag or Sachin Tendulkar. However, he had found his way and process to withstand pressure and come out on top against some of the best fast bowlers of his time.

“Honestly, I was never going to be like Viru (Virender Sehwag). He found it much easier to switch off because of his personality. I was never going to get to that level. I knew I needed to find a way to switch it off but it was the mental side of the thing that you need to help yourself,” Dravid said.

The current India head coach said that he started to make an effort to switch off a lot more and this helped him in his career. “If you did all of that but were unable to switch off mentally, you are not gonna have enough energy to play the game,” he added.

Dravid conceded that he was never going to be someone who started scoring quickly like Sehwag and Sachin and he always needed patience and that he loved to get involved in a one-on-one contest with the pacers.