Rahul Dravid who announced his retirement today, has been one of the greatest cricketer that this country has produced and unfortunately will get the least credit for his contribution to the game, because all of India reveres Sachin as the God.
Sachin Tendulkar is a phenomenonal batsman and a thinking cricketer. He's clearly the best batsman this country has produced if the not the world. I think he was born gifted and has a amazing sense of timing and hand eye co-ordination. He showed it, way early in his career and progressed by building on it. He is, as I would say a “natural”.
Every single Indian who picks up a bat aspires to be like Sachin Tendulkar. Mother pray and fathers bray in coaxing their litters into wielding the willow. But for every Tendulkar, there are a million who fall by the wayside and are left selling credit cards and writing blogs :-).
Let me examine another cricketer - Rahul Dravid. I wouldn’t by any stretch of imagination call him a natural. Dravid is the hard working, technically correct cricketer who puts in a lot of effort and displays tenacity. He unfortunately is not gifted with the raw natural talent that Sachin has ( This is true for 99.99% of us ). So he has made that up with sheer hard work and getting down to the basics. I would put Anil Kumble in a similar bracket as Dravid.
Dravid will not be as great as Sachin but he has left his indelible mark on Indian cricket.
The problem is that all of us aspire to be like Sachin when we are as talented as Dravid, if not worse. We walk in believing that we are potential god’s gift to mankind and leave the field with dreams shattered and egos hurt.
The key to success is to realise whether you have the natural talent of Sachin and if not, to change track and become like the hardworking Dravid. Strategy No 2 clearly has a higher probability of success