Much has been written about Dravid's slow batting. As far as I see there could be only 2 reasons why this happened.
a. Dravid was struggling for form b. Dravid was just seeing off the new ball
In both cases, Dravid is justified. If Dravid was struggling for form, it is quite possible because India were playing Australia in a Test Match with no match practice in Australia. The Test matches vs Pakistan were played on slow/low wickets and can hardly be termed as "preparing" for the Australian tour. Whoever made these pitches should be pulled up first. And also, Dravid was playing the role of a opener that he was not quite accustomed to. It could be just that the team strategy failed here.
b. While statistically we may prove that it was the fourth slowest starts, there are many other instances that come to my mind where players have started off slowly, but have gone on to make a big score. Very recently Phil Jacques took some 30 balls to open the account, but went to score big against one of the modest pace attacks in the world - which is Sri Lanka! May be... just may be Rahul prevented the likes of Saurav Ganguly from facing Brett Lee and saved further embarrassment.
The overall batting failed and it is wrong to find one scape goat in Rahul Dravid. Lets face it, it was a mental game.., a war of attrition and the team that held their nerve won the battle for the day. The Test match is not yet over, and lets not be too quick in composing an obituary.
