Former Indian captain Rahul Dravid has shed light on how he handled himself mentally during his long career. Dravid was known to be a serious student of the game and he used to dwell hard on his game, even when he was not playing.

It was not helping Dravid as he needed to switch off from the game to get the best out of himself. Dravid admitted that he was never going to be like Virender Sehwag, who was known to be a bit casual while playing, but he needed to give himself a break from the game and not think hard all the time, which could have hampered his game.

It is always important for players to live in the present and focus their energy on the ongoing series or match, and even take one ball at a time.

Dravid was able to maintain the right balance, though he gave the impression that he was thinking hard all the time. In fact, Dravid admitted that thinking too much was taking a toll on his game.

“If I look back on my career, that..managing my energy, more of my mental energy was the real game-changer in terms of longetivity in my career and in terms of performance. I used to expend a lot of energy, even when I was not playing, thinking about my game, may be reflecting on it, worrying about it. In time I kind of learned that was not necessarily actually not helping my sport or helping me play better. I needed to refresh and almost find a life outside of cricket,” Dravid said in Abhinav Bindra’s podcast ‘In the Zone’.

“I was still always never going to be like Viru, like Virender Sehwag, who found it much easier to switch off because of his personality outside of the game. I was never going to get to that level. But certainly, I started recognising the red flags. I knew I needed to find a way to switch it off but it was the mental side of the thing that you need to help yourself. It came down to you recognising that this was as important to you as those extra hours in the gym and practice sessions. If you did all of that but were unable to switch off mentally, you are not gonna have enough energy to play the game. Once I start recognising that three or four years in my career, I started to make an effort to switch off a lot more and it helped me a lot.”

Rahul Dravid was always known to maintain the right balance and he was able to savor success because he was mentally tough. It is well known that mental toughness plays a key role in a player’s career and Dravid was able to tick the right boxes in his career.