Irfan Pathan calls Rahul Dravid ‘criminally underrated’ as a cricketer; opines why he was a successful captain

Pathan lauded Dravid's communication skills as a captain.

The Indian team has been fortunate to have captains in its cricket history who have always contributed something positive towards the game. Be it Kapil Dev who brought the one-day revolution due to the 1983 World Cup win, or Sourav Ganguly, who taught the team to win outside Asia.

Or be it MS Dhoni, who won all the three ICCC trophies and made Indian team a giant of world cricket. Currently, Virat Kohli is bringing in his aggressive brand of cricket into Indian players, making them competitive. However, amongst these captains including Mohammad Azharuddin and Sachin Tendulkar, one skipper seems to get lost in the shuffle and that is Rahul Dravid.

Dravid took on the captaincy during the tumultuous Chappell-Ganguly era and earned some big accolades. He captained India in 79 ODIs out of which India won 42 matches, and lost 33 games, with a winning percentage of 56. He also captained India in 25 Tests in which he won 8, and lost 6, with a winning percentage of 32.00. 

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He also led India to 17 straight ODI wins while chasing as captain at one point.

Talking about the same on Instagram Live video chat show ‘Beyond the Field’ with ESPNCricinfo.com, Irfan Pathan called Rahul Dravid the “Most, most, most underrated cricketer in the world.”

“Rahul Dravid was also one captain who thought differently, but he was very clear in his communication. He would tell ‘this is your role and you have to work accordingly’. He wanted you to do everything. He has played cricket like that as well,” Pathan said.

“He has donned the wicketkeeper’s gloves, he was ready to open, and he was ready to bat at no. 3. People would say he is not a great ODI cricketer, but he has scored 10,000+ runs in 50 overs cricket as well. He was such a great team player. His style of captaincy was also for the team,” Pathan added.

Pathan called Dravid a great captain with amazing communication skills.

“Sometimes it gets difficult to communicate with a captain because they are always surrounded by things. But Dravid was one such captain, that you can even approach him at 2 am at night with a problem. A captain’s role is to keep communication with all the players, and he did that,” Pathan further said.