'The most beautiful e-mail': When Rahul Dravid left Kevin Pietersen awestruck

Kevin Pietersen revealed how an e-mail from Indian great Rahul Dravid had motivated him and changed his life forever.

'The most beautiful e-mail': Kevin Pietersen

“Dravid wrote me the most beautiful email, explaining the art of playing spin and ever since then it was a whole new world. The key point was looking for the length as soon as the ball was delivered – wait for the spinner and make your decision,” said Pietersen while interacting on Sky Sports.

 

Rahul Dravid's advice to Kevin Pietersen

Rahul Dravid and Kevin Pietersen got to know each other well after the duo played for the IPL franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore. KP was one of the best batsmen during his playing days. However, even the best have failed at some point in time and the same happened with Kevin Pietersen as well.

During England's tour of Bangladesh in 2010, the 'Three Lions' had played a practice match prior to the Test series where Pietersen had a forgettable outing as he could only manage to score 2 and 20 in both the innings and he had lost his wickets to spinners on both occasions. They were Shakib Al Hasan and Abdur Razzak respectively. Kevin Pietersen definitely wanted to improve and therefore, he decided to seek advice from arguably the best in the business, Rahul Dravid about how to play spin. Rahul Dravid, who is also one of the gentlemen of world cricket obliged and wrote a big note to the former English skipper on how to tackle spinners effectively. The World T20 winner went on to highlight this in his autobiography titled ‘KP: The Autobiography’.

Rahul Dravid's words of wisdom for KP

Here's what Dravid had asked Pietersen to follow in order to play the spin well. 

“One good practice is to bat against Swann and Monty without pads or with just knee pads (maybe not a day before a game!). When you have no pads it will force you, sometimes painfully, to get the bat forward off the pads and will force you to watch the ball. Also, the leg will be less keen to push out without any protection."
 

“My coach would tell me you should never need pads to play spin!! Watch the ball and trust yourself. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t play spin, I have seen you and you can."

 A screenshot of Rahul Dravid's letter of advice to KP was also posted by a fan a few months back.

READ: Kevin Pietersen Left Awestruck After Rahul Dravid's Letter Of Advice

(Image Courtesy: PTI)