Dravid, who took 210 catches in 164 Tests, the most by an outfielder in Test history, was a wicketkeeper at the U-15 and U-17 level, but strong competition within Karnataka, his state team, forced him to “give up the gloves at the age of 17-18”. Having turned into a specialist batsman, and looking at ways to contribute more as a player, Dravid then started taking his fielding seriously.

“I love being involved,” Dravid said. “I wasn’t a good enough bowler to be able to contribute with the ball. I tried my best. So I sort of figured out ‘How do you contribute to the team? What do you do?’. I mean, sitting there as a batsman, what can I do really well, and one of the things was, if I catch well, it’s a contribution. You feel you’re involved, you’re playing a part.

Stressing that fielding is a trait that can be improved by working hard, unlike batting and bowling which require one to be “a little gifted”, Dravid said that he used to challenge himself by standing at different distances to spinners during practice.

“Slip catching, a lot of it, is about practice  – the more practice you can do, the variety of practice you can do – it’s not mindlessly taking catches. I think catching [to] spinners was a very important thing for India, about a hundred of those catches are off two spinners – [Anil] Kumble and Harbhajan [Singh], I took about 60 of them playing in India – we do prepare turning tracks!”