Rahul Dravid's Hall of Fame inclusion ahead of his celebrated peers is just recognition for his service to cricket

Rahul Dravid, Hall of Famer. Something doesn’t sit right. Think Hall of Fame, and you think of glory gone past; refulgent in its time, but dimming as other stars emerge and shine more brightly more presently. That’s why you have institutions like Halls of Fame, lest we forget memories and moments made by men and women that should be sacrosanct. Jackie Robinson, the first black man to break the colour line and play in Major League Baseball. Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson, with his basketball prowess and work against HIV. Rachael Heyhoe-Flint, World Cup winner, fundraiser, and visionary administrator. These are the names that come to mind when you think Hall of Fame. On pedestals we find them, but also in the past. So, Rahul Dravid? Something’s not right. Perhaps that is because Dravid may be more loved in the present than he was when he actually wore white and blue. Never mind his tens of thousands of runs in Test and ODI cricket. Never mind his record 210 catches in Tests. Never mind his 2003 World Cup runners-up medal. India is still hooked to the Rahul Dravid of the present, a gift that keeps on giving. Great, yes. But Hall of Fame? Think about it. In a country like India, it is hard to think of someone as a celestial legend when you see them queuing up at airports, or standing in line with their kids at science exhibitions. If you’re lucky, you can run into Dravid on the streets of Bangalore walking his dog, as some cousins of a friend of mine did. [caption id=“attachment_4650541” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Rahul Dravid on the streets of Bangalore walking his dog, as some cousins of the  writer’s friend bump into the former India cricketer. Special Arrangement.[/caption] But what a glorious past he has. One of the highest compliments we can afford Dravid, is that he is discussed less in terms of stats, and more time-and-place stamps: Lord’s, 1996. Kolkata, 2001.  Headingley, 2002. Adelaide, 2003. England, 2007 and 2011. Not all mark wins, but all are memories. But the Hall of Fame could have waited; Dravid is not done with the game. Most people think it was selfless of Dravid to get back into coaching. He could have taken up the much less laborious life of a commentator. No sunscreen required, no rotator cuff pain after throw-downs, no one-sided musculature after hitting catches. After sweating hundreds of buckets while scoring those tens of thousands of runs, why did Dravid have to sweat some more? With one of cricket’s biggest media companies based in his home city, he could have made a living from the cool (and dry) comfort of a Bangalore studio. By his own admission (and perhaps his family will agree?), it was a selfish move. “Commentary was nice and great, but you just don’t get the fulfilment at the end of the day," he said last year, speaking at the Go Sports Athletes Conclave. “Being involved with young people, their lives gave me the most satisfaction. So, purely for selfish reasons, I am doing something that gives me satisfaction.” Selfish reasons, then, are why he turned down an honourary doctorate. Selfish reasons are why he asked the BCCI to reconsider its decision to award him more prize money after winning the recent Under-19 World Cup in New Zealand. It adds to Dravid’s growing legacy when he shows us that selfish and selfless have an overlap in their Venn diagram. I remember watching Dravid in the National Cricket Academy passing on advice to his younger namesake, KL Rahul, before the latter played for India. I met Arjun Dev Nagendra, who wrote one of the most widely read cricket articles on the internet, an account of the time Dravid played a club game to help his team earn promotion to the top Division. In New Zealand, I saw Dravid agree to a post-midnight interview after the Under-19 World Cup was won. More importantly, he recognised and greeted the same journalists when he saw them again in India. He didn’t have to. You could say that doing things he didn’t have to define Dravid, and continues to do so: Reinventing his game to suit the shorter format, when he could have been a supremely successful Test specialist. Taking up wicket-keeping duties to help India find balance leading into the 2003 World Cup. Opening the batting as one of the most senior players in the squad, on his last tour to England. The likes of him are an endangered species in Test cricket, and yet because of Dravid’s legacy, we have the patience for the patient Cheteshwar Pujara. We acknowledge Murali Vijay’s best shot as they leave, and we give weight to Ajinkya Rahane’s away runs, because we watched the labours of Dravid, helping take India to heights they had never been. We wish he didn’t have to give up captaincy in 2007, and it is one of Indian cricket’s biggest counterfactual questions: What a full Dravid regime would have looked like? He didn’t have to retire as he did, by Indian standards, abruptly; no farewell Test, no pre-announced date that engineered a standing ovation. He didn’t have to call out the rampant age-fudging in Indian junior cricket, and he didn’t have to try to stamp out the practice under his watch. He cares about young people doing the right things; it’s why at the  cricket academy he mentors in Bangalore, students who drop out of school to concentrate on the game are not welcome. “My generation, the post-1983-generation, grew up with cricket and cinema as our only forms of leisure”, he mentioned while delivering the 2015-16 Pataudi lecture. He eventually became one of cricket’s best, but never truly the cine-star in the way that his peers did. That is a wrong his Hall of Fame inclusion corrects: the honour comes to him before his more feted batting compatriots (Tendulkar is still not eligible). But hold that trophy. Of all of India’s golden generation of cricketers, I am most eager to see how much richer cricket is when he finally consigns it to his past. The author is a former India cricketer, and now a freelance journalist and broadcaster. She hosts the YouTube Channel, ‘ Cricket With Snehal ’, and tweets @SnehalPradhan