Wisden overview
Lovesick women weep for him, but Rahul Dravid is regularly booed to the crease. For he is usually India's No. 3 - destined to bat under a shadow which, though only five foot five, is all-consuming. That his wicket should be so prized by India's own, Tendulkar-obsessed, supporters is miserable, because Dravid on song is a batsman of beauty - fluid, wristy, able to dazzle on both sides of the wicket at whim. He can do rigid defence too, which, combined with a chess-player's concentration, has earned him the nickname The Wall, and, increasingly, that is what India's firework display of a middle order needs him to be. But Dravid is more than consistency, more than the dog's howl before the storm. His average is just as handsome overseas as it is on the slow surfaces at home, and he has his own place in history for the commanding 180 he made and the 376 he put on with VVS Laxman which took India to an impossible victory against the Australians at Eden Gardens in March 2001. No-one, not even Sachin, can take that away from him. He remains genial and open, able to live a pretty normal life, as Tendulkar takes the heat of a nation's obsession along with its adoration. Some things are more important than cricket. Tanya Aldred

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd