Rahul Dravid

Calcutta: It’s only rarely that Rahul Dravid gives a one-on-one. Rarer still for him to speak exclusively to a news agency.

Dravid, however, did talk to one on Monday — five days after informing Board president Sharad Pawar he wouldn’t continue as captain — but the one-on-one was at the Board’s behest!

“The Board wanted Dravid to clear the air, so to say, as there had been so much speculation over the past few days… There was even talk that Dravid’s decision had been because of pressure… It was to get the widest coverage that he spoke to a news agency,” one of The Telegraph’s sources pointed out on Tuesday.

In keeping with the objective, Dravid didn’t really say anything earth-shattering.

He has, of course, started a debate over the shelf life of captains in India.

While Dravid vacated the chair within 23 months, Sourav Ganguly was captain for five-and-a-half years. Mohammed Azharuddin’s first innings — from January 1990 to August 1996 — had been even longer…

It’s to be seen when Mahendra Singh Dhoni, given the additional responsibility of captaining in ODIs, begins to think about the shelf life.