Strong and Silent leader : Rahul Dravid

Strong and silent leaders 

We are used to a world where, many times, showmanship triumphs substance. And People who don't walk the talk.

So it's refreshing to see someone like Rahul Dravid who does things so quietly and calmly, it stands out for its principles 

A few would recall when a university in Karnataka wanted to award him doctorate degree for his cricket success, he politely refused saying, he would rather study and specialize in some subject before getting it.

Recently, Rahul Dravid refused BCCI's extra ₹2.5 crore ($300k) bonus over rest of his support staff for T20 World Cup victory. Keeping up with his principles of taking an equal share of prize bonus as the rest of his support staff, the outgoing head coach refused to take the additional ₹2.5 crore that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) was awarding him — at par with members of the playing squad of India’s T20 World Cup winning team.

Dravid had made a similar point as head coach of India’s winning U-19 World Cup team of 2018. When it was decided that Dravid, for his stature, would get ₹50 lakh while the other members of the support staff would get ₹20 lakh each and the players ₹30 lakh each, he had refused the formula. Dravid wanted the BCCI to award everyone equally.

This reminds me of below story on Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22 novel. At a party given by a billionaire,  a friend informs Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds,“Yes, but I have something he will never have — ENOUGH.”

Right through his playing career he was overshadowed by other personalities. Sachin Sehwag Ganguly Laxman. He was there on the other end, applauding and encouraging them, even as all of them did thier individual records. And this man quietly contributed to team success.

That he has zero ego is shown by the line he said below.."My grand children might not remember that, I made 10,000 runs in both ODIs and test, but they would surely remember that their grandfather played with Sachin Tendulkar"

And everyone from Sachin to Lara, Murali to Steve Waugh has only nice things to say, about "The great wall" see enclosed.

Oh God, can we have more people (leaders) like Rahul Dravid please šŸ™




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