No. 5 position suits Rahane the best: Dravid

MUMBAI: Former India captain Rahul Dravid joined the chorus of praise that's been flowing towards Virat Kohli in recent days, recalling how he had been bowled over by the current Test skipper's desire to improve his game when he had only just arrived on the international stage.
"One of the things I saw rather early in Virat was his ability to work hard on improving his game," Dravid said on Friday during an interaction with former cricketer Aakash Chopra at the launch of the latter's new book, The Insider."(Kohli) had joined the RCB team fresh from leading the India Under-19 side to World Cup glory, and I remember a few months later during the Irani Trophy game between Rest of India and Delhi in Baroda, he got out to a short ball. Six months later, it was all sorted out. He is that kind of player who is always looking for ways to improve and finding answers to the questions asked of him," he added.
With Kohli's current India team-mate Ajinkya Rahane also in attendance, talk inevitably shifted to the ongoing debate raging over the Mumbai batsman's position in the Test line-up. Asked which slot he'd prefer to see Rahane occupy between three and five, Dravid gave it some thought before saying, "He's a good number four or five. That's not to say he can't bat at three. He showed in Sri Lanka that he has what it takes to be successful there, and there could well be more occasions in the future where the team may need him to bat there. But considering the runs he's got at five, his range of shots, his ability to bat with the tail as well as play the second new ball, five is probably the position that suits him best."

Rahane has garnered a reputation for being earnest and sincere that has led to former players like Sunil Gavaskar comparing him with Dravid, his mentor at Rajasthan Royals. But the current India A and under-19 coach was typically modest when asked if he saw shades of himself in Rahane. "He certainly plays more shots than I did, scores at a quicker rate, definitely entertains people more than I used to," said Dravid. "Where I can relate with him is he had to work every bit as hard as I had to get into the Indian team, maybe cause he wasn't perceived to be as flashy as some of the others. But in the past couple of years, he's probably been India's best player considering the fact that he's scored runs virtually everywhere."
Reflecting on India's first Test series win in Sri Lanka in 22 years, Dravid said the various individual performances pointed to a promising future for Indian cricket. "All our leading batsman got runs," he said, adding: "When we were bowing out, we all felt it was going to be really exciting to see how this current lot were going to develop. If three or four of these guys can establish themselves in that middle order, there's good reason to feel encouraged. Let's not forget that they will also feel the pressure from those knocking on the door. As long as that's the case, you know the standard is always good."
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