Rahul Dravid a legend of Indian cricket is admired by every cricket fan and player all around the world. In his 16 years international career, Dravid earned the reputation of being the toughest batsman to dismiss. His impeccable defence and his one of a kind powers of concentration was a hallmark of his batting. Since retirement, Dravid has taken coaching roles and has mentored several young stars of Indian cricket.
Before that, the former Indian skipper also tried his hand on commentary on television. Dravid used to largely give his insights during India’s overseas tour during his commentary stint. He was known to be a man of very few statements during his career but everyone saw a new facet of him during commentary.
Dravid made sure that he entertained all his fans through his smooth sense of humour. He came up with remarkably funny commentary pieces that had everyone in cracks. Much like his career as a player, his commentary career was also very underrated. We try to dig and find out his top 3 incredible comments during commentary that you don’t wanna miss.
3 Epic Comments From Rahul Dravid During His Commentary:
3. Trolling Ganguly for his fitness
Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid shared the dressing room for more than a decade. The duo made their debuts together in 1996 at Lord’s. In 2007 Dravid was the captain won Indian won their historic Test series in England 1-0.
Popular commentator Harsha Bhogle recalled that Test series win and brought up some stats regarding bowling figures of Ganguly and Tendulkar on air. Dravid was part of that commentary stint and took a sarcastic dig over his former captain’s ordinary fitness.
Dravid said, “Sanjay Manjrekar made a really good point in the commentary box. If Ganguly had been a yard quicker and just a little bit fitter, he would have been a match-winner.”
2. Hillarious comments on Shahid Afridi
India was facing arch-rivals Pakistan in the world cup in 2015 at Adelaide. Pakistan was reeling at 103-5 as they were chasing a mammoth target of 301. Captain Misbah-ul-Haq was joined by the mercurial Pakistani star all-rounder Shahid Afridi in the middle.
Dravid was doing Hindi commentary for Star with former Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar. As soon as Akhtar said, “Pakistan ke liye jeetna ab kaafi mushkil, saari ummeede sirf Afridi pe tiki hai”.
Rahul Dravid made the most of the opportunity and hilariously trolled Shahid Afridi over Akhtar’s comments. He said, “Ye to bohot hi buri haalat hai agar ummeede Afridi pe tiki hai!!”.
This left the entire commentary box in splits as no one expected Rahul Dravid to come up with this epic one-liner.
1. Mic Drop on Naseer Hussain
Defending champions India were on a roll in the 2015 cricket World Cup in Australia. MS Dhoni’s side won all their matches leading up to the quarter-finals against Bangladesh. During the QF when India was placed comfortably and marching towards the semi-finals when Naseer Hussain asked Dravid.
“They’re peaking too early, aren’t they? Are you worried Rahul that your boys are peaking too early?”
Dravid replied, “Nasser, it’s better to peak early than to not peak at all! You have to peak early to make to the quarter-finals actually. That’s bit of the rules of the tournament”.
Rahul Dravid took a dig at England’s horror performances in the World Cup over Hussain’s comments from the commentary box. Bangladesh knocked out England from the group stages of the World Cup. This witty jibe by Dravid left his fellow analysts Hussain and Shane Warne speechless.