Former India batsman Rahul Dravid is known to have a reserved personality and maintains a low profile off the field despite his legions of fans wanting to see him active on social media.
Dravid, former India captain and coach of India’s Under-19 and A teams, has a Facebook page where his last post was a year back. Meanwhile, his contemporaries Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman have been quite active on various platforms.
However, responding to why he is not active on social media during an Instagram live video chat, Dravid said he didn’t feel the need to do so and prefers staying off it as he is not used to technology.
“There’s no particular reason behind why I am not on social media but that I don’t see any reason why I need to be active,” Dravid said during an chat with ESPNCricinfo’s Raunak Kapoor on Instagram.
“I communicate with people on my phone. Recently I’ve felt the need to be active, there are a lot of interesting articles and people you can follow on coaching, management and fitness which is related to work I do. So I’ve been reading some of that stuff online but I don’t get on with it. I have some random account through which I read stuff from these accounts but that’s just recent. I haven’t done it so I don’t have a good answer,” he added.
Cricket, which has come to a halt alongside other disciplines around the world due to the coronavirus pandemic, has confined sportsmen to their homes and indoor training. Speaking about the situation, Dravid said that cricketers will find it tough to stay away from the game and will that it will take some time to get in the groove once sporting activities resume.
“Sportsmen and cricketers are used to having time off but this is strange,” he said. “Not being able to go to a ground, training and managing your fitness [is strange] when you are used to being a professional by training in the best environment, training in gyms with physiotherapists around you and having access to nets. It is what it is and I think we are all better off than other people, so we can’t complain. But it’s hard for players who are used to it. Our young Indian players are not used to taking time off since they are playing or practicing all the time. It might be rusty to start off a bit.”
Dravid, who is Head of Cricket at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru, said he has been staying in touch with coaches and other trainers, preparing for the training camps once lockdown resumes.
“I’m still trying to stay connected with coaches and trainers in the NCA so we stay connected once in a while,” he said. “It has been disappointing in that aspect since April and May are the months where we get busy; when we conducted a lot of camps and where a lot of preparation goes into it but it can’t be helped. We just have to react and respond when we need to but till then we are trying to stay prepared,” he said.
