V V S Laxman and Rahul Dravid have got lot of similarities.  Both of them have played together at a Zonal level for a long time and have good understanding between them.  Both of them have been involved in memorable partnerships in Test Matches.  Both of them share a unique record of being involved in  300+ partnership in Test Matches on a couple of occasions.  Co incidentally on both the occasions those partnerships have turned a certain Indian defeat to a famous Indian win.

Yet inspite of having so many similarities, Dravid went on to represent India regularly in one dayers, while Laxman was not lucky enough  While Rahul Dravid got an opportunity to represent India in 335 one dayers with only Sachin Tendulkar representing India on more occasions, Laxman got to play a mere 86 matches for India.. To add to Laxman's misery he was dropped from one dayers when he was at the peak of his powers, and when he was the most consistent player for India at that point of time.

Let us look at some similarities between V V S Laxman and Rahul Dravid.

1) V V S Laxman and Rahul Dravid have similar strike rates in one dayers.  In fact V V S Laxman with a strike rate of 71.23 per 100 balls, is marginally ahead of Rahul Dravid who has a strike rate of 71.12

2) V V S Laxman has a far better stirke rate in Test Matches.  While Laxman gets his runs at 49.07 per 100 balls, Dravid scores at 41.73

3) Both of them are good slip fielders.

4) Both of them have never been known as good outfielders or for good running between wickets.

5) Both of them cannot bowl.  While Dravid gave additional flexibility for the team in terms of wicket keeping though unwillingly, this was only a brief while during Sourav Ganguly's tenure as captain.

While Laxman and Dravid are similar in most aspects if you take the above points into consideration, Laxman has a marginal edge  over Dravid.  Laxman is known to be a free flowing stroke player in Tests, whose natural abilities gets him runs more quickly than most other specialist batsman.  Though Dravid has been more consistent in Tests and has a better average of 52.53 compared to Laxman's 45.24, Laxman has a better reputation of being a big match player, one who can play monumental innings like that 281 against Australia at Eden Gardens.

Laxman's batting average is one dayers is a modest 30.76 compared to Dravid's 39.42, but that is due to the fact that Laxman was never a regular in a team and always under pressure which did not help his cause.  Laxman was dropped when was actually improving his batting average with his consistent performances.

One must say in all fairness that if Rahul Dravid deserved to play for India in one dayers, so did  V V S Laxman

Regards

Satish

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