Rahul Dravid, while in conversation with WV Raman, the Indian Women coach and former international player, opened up on his initial struggles in one-day cricket.

Dravid, who made his ODI debut for India in 1996, went on to represent the nation in 344 ODIs over 15 years, scoring 10,889 runs. However, he was dropped from the ODI side two years into his career, before making a return ahead of the 1999 World Cup, where he finished as the tournament’s top-scorer with 461 runs.

Pointing out that he grew up “wanting to be a Test player”, he revealed that at one stage, he wasn’t sure of his ability to play in ODIs.

“There have been phases in my international career [when I felt insecure],” Dravid said. “I was dropped from the ODI team in 1998. I had to fight my way back in, spent a year away from the game.

“There were certain insecurities then as well about whether I’m a good enough one-day player or not because I had grown up wanting to be a Test player, was coached to be a Test player – hit the ball on the ground, don’t hit the ball in the air, coaching like that. You sort of worry whether you had the skills to be able to do it.”

The 47-year-old also opened up on his time as a budding cricketer, saying there were insecurities as he had “given up a career in studies” and so there wasn’t “too much to fall back on” if he didn’t succeed as a cricketer.

Rahul Dravid showing Brian Lara how it’s done 😛 pic.twitter.com/e3dI6r7pk8

— Wisden India (@WisdenIndia) April 25, 2020

“I have gone through many phases of insecurities,” he said. “Growing up as a young cricketer in India is not easy, there’s a lot of competition and especially in the time that I grew up in, where there were only the Ranji Trophy and the Indian team, there was no IPL. Even the money in Ranji Trophy was so poor that there was always that constant challenge because you’ve given up a career in studies.

“I was not bad in studies, so I could’ve easily gone on to potentially do an MBA or a CA, which I kind of forego to have a career in cricket and if the cricket didn’t work out there wasn’t too much to fall back on.

“So there was a level of insecurity at that age, which actually helps me a lot in working with these younger players, because I can identify their challenges and some of the insecurities that they go through.”