Former Indian batter Rahul Dravid recalled his epic partnership with VVS Laxman in the 2003 Adelaide Test match against Australia, which the visitors won by four wickets. Australia posted a gargantuan score of 556 runs in the first innings with Ricky Ponting scoring 242 runs.
In response, India was struggling at 85-4 after Virender Sehwag, Aakash Chopra, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly were dismissed cheaply. Dravid admitted that he sold Ganguly down the river as the run-out was his fault.
Rahul Dravid said on Star Sports, “I was thinking, ‘I’ve got the captain run-out. I better do something meaningful.’ It was totally my mistake getting Saurav (Ganguly) run out. I will own up to that one–it was my mistake.”
However, Dravid stitched together a fine alliance of 303 runs with VVS Laxman, who scored a fine knock of 148 runs. Dravid batted at the top of his game and scored a majestic knock of 233. India’s former number three said the plan was to bat long with Laxman.
“I think you’re just trying to bat, you’re just trying to build a partnership, you’re just trying to get to the target. 556 is a huge score. You’re just trying to stitch together a partnership; we’ve lost four wickets, and you’re just trying to think about getting close and batting together,” the Indian legend recalled.
Meanwhile, Dravid created a potent bond with VVS Laxman and forged a lot of crucial stands with the right-hander, including the memorable Kolkata Test against Australia. Dravid said he batted a lot with Laxman and it helped them understand each other’s strengths.
“The thing with Laxman and me is that we had batted together a couple of really big partnerships before that. We did it once in Kolkata in 2001 and even in a domestic game when we first played South Zone against West Zone–we had a really big partnership. So we had kind of batted a lot together and built this partnership,” the former India captain stated.
“It’s always nice batting with Laxman as well, right? Because he’s just a beautiful player to watch and such a lovely player. He really attacked back, which, in some ways, complemented me quite well in how we went about our innings,” he added.
Meanwhile, Dravid scored an unbeaten 72 runs in the second innings at Adelaide to help India chase down 233.
