Former New Zealand skipper Ross Taylor narrated an interesting incident featuring the current Indian head coach Rahul Dravid. The duo played together in the Indian Premier League 2011 season for the Rajasthan Royals. Taylor expressed that in the 2011 season, he understood how difficult it is for the Indian cricketers to venture out in public in India.
In his autobiography titled ‘Black And White, Ross Taylor narrated an incident where he and Rahul Dravid visited the Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan to see a tiger. He revealed that before their Ranthambore trip, Rahul Dravid had never spotted a tiger in any of his earlier 21 expeditions. Ross Taylor wrote, as reported by stuff.co.nz,
“I asked Dravid, ‘how many times have you seen a tiger?’ He said, ‘I’ve never seen a tiger. I’ve been on 21 of these expeditions and haven’t seen a single one.’ I thought, ‘What? 21 safaris for zero sightings.’ Seriously, if I’d known that, I wouldn’t have gone. I would’ve said, “No thanks, I’ll watch the Discovery channel. Jake Oram had been out in the morning – no joy.”
“There was some baseball game on TV that he wanted to watch so he didn’t come with us on the mid-afternoon safari. It wasn’t long before our driver got a radio call from a colleague to say they’d found T-17, a famous, tagged tiger. Dravid was thrilled: 21 safaris without seeing as much as a tiger turd, but half an hour into number 22 he’d hit pay dirt,” he added.
People were as excited to see Rahul Dravid as we were to see the tiger: Ross Taylor
Former New Zealand cricketer Ross Taylor further narrated that the duo spotted a tiger. However, the other people who were also on the spot were more interested in seeing Rahul Dravid than the tiger. He stated,
“We pulled up beside the other vehicles, open-top SUVs a bit bigger than Land Rovers. The tiger was on a rock, a good 100 meters away. We were stoked to see a tiger in the wild, but the people in the other vehicles immediately aimed their cameras at Rahul. They were as excited to see him as we were to see the tiger. Maybe more: across the globe there are almost 4000 tigers in the wild, but there’s only one Rahul Dravid.”
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