Nitish Rana Reflects on Childhood Fandom and Rahul Dravid’s Mentorship

Nitish Rana Reflects on Childhood Fandom: Most members of the Indian cricketing fraternity of today grew up looking up to one of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid or Sourav Ganguly- India's all-time great batting trinity. In the Rana household, there were equal fans for all three, which sometimes led to uproars in the family. Yes, there were scenarios where this risen cricketer from Rajasthan Royals Nitin Rana would lock himself in a room and cry-out if he saw his favorite batter losing out to the other two. Blessed with a cricket-obsessed lineage, Rana, along with his father and brother, used to support the Indian team by rooting for different players. Ganguly was Rana's favorite as he himself was a leftie; his esteem for the other two not so high.

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"Dad was a huge Sachin Tendulkar fan. I loved Sourav Ganguly and my brother liked Rahul Dravid sir. So, in our house, whenever India played, fights were inevitable. Someone or the other out of the three of us had to get upset or angry. Because it was very rare that all three of them scored together. What used to happen with me was because Rahul sir was going through a career peak, I and my brother had a lot of fights. We could obviously say nothing to our father," Rana said on a FanCode podcast.

"Things like 'Your player did not score runs, mine did'. I would get very agitated and cry in my room thinking 'How did Sourav Ganguly get. Not today, I needed to show my brother'. On the other hand, Rahul Dravid would score 100s after 100s. So my childhood memories are these My first Indian tour was with Rahul sir. If I look at this connecting it to my childhood, it's a great achievement. Where I would be fighting regarding him as a child to playing under him. These things are very close to my heart."

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So talking about the time of Rana must be during the zero hours of Dravid from 2002 to 2004. During the tour of India to England in 2002, Dravid scored 3 back-to-back centuries, culminating in 4 back-to-back hundreds when he returned back to play NZ at home. Dravid then followed the Indian team to Australia, where he took Ponting's Australians to the limit in the 2003/2004 Border series, punishing them with 619 runs, including 233 at Adelaide. A few months later, when Dravid toured Pakistan, he notched up his highest-ever Test score of 270 at Rawalpindi.

As Rana has stated, the times when Tendulkar, Ganguly, and Dravid batted together were few and far between. But there were a lot of times when two out of the three did get accolades and partnerships together by the hundreds- Tendulkar and Dravid had a whopping 20 Test hundred partnerships; Tendulkar and Ganguly had 21 in ODIs. In that memorable Test in 2002 against England at Headingley, for the only time, all three scored centuries in one match. Tendulkar with 193, Dravid 148, and Ganguly 128, set up India for an innings victory of 46 runs.

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