On 11 January 2021 former Indian cricket captain Rahul Dravid’s age turned 48 and on this occasion his fans and followers sent their heart warming birthday wishes to him through social media from different parts of India and across the world.
Rahul Dravid is a true gentleman, and a legendary Indian cricketer who is one of the most respected cricket players in the world cricket. He is always been humble, down to earth, respect other players and trying to teach other as much as he can.
Rahul Dravid debuted test cricket along with Saurav Ganguly at Lords in 1996. During this test series, Saurav Ganguly scored centuries in his first two Tests and Rahul Dravid scored 95 and 84 and only 21 runs separated him from two hundred in his first two Tests.
Rahul Dravid was India’s most consistent batsman of Indian team and he was carrying out wicket keeper role also whenever he has been asking to do so. Rahul Dravid widely regarded as a Test Cricket Specialist and he was always standing like a wall whenever other batsmen failed in scoring adequate runs for the team.
He has already played 164 test matches for India, and altogether he has taken 13288 runs, 36 test centuries and 63 fifty’s. His batting average in Test Cricket is 52.31. Rahul Dravid is the fourth-highest run scorer in Test cricket, after Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting and Jacques Kallis.
At the same time he played 344 ODIs for India and altogether he has taken 10889 runs, 12 centuries and 83 fifties. His batting average was in ODI is 39.16.
Rahul Dravid had the vast ability and knack of contributing gigantic partnerships with VVS Laxman/Sehwag/Sachin. He was one of the best test batsmen that India has ever produced and he has immensely helped India to win many test matches.
Rahul Dravid is currently heads the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru. Considering his vast contributions towards Indian cricket, he was bestowed with the Arjuna award in 1998. He has also received India’s second and third highest civilian honor Padma Shri as well as Padma Bhushan in 2004 and 2013 respectively. In 2004, he was also the recipient of the ICC Cricketer of the Year award.
With effect from 1994 to 2013 India never won a test match in overseas without Rahul Dravid.
He became the back bone of Indian cricket team and he was always been piling up enormous runs for Indian team while he was playing under Saurav Ganguly’s captaincy.
Ever since he started playing for Indian Cricket Test team as a batsman, he was batting at the 6th position. But later he used to come at one down position and gradually he became the rock wall in one down batting position for India.
Rahul Dravid is now providing training and coaching for many budding talented cricket players in India and many are now getting chance to play for Indian cricket team, IPL as well as domestic cricket team etc. Ever since Rahul Dravid retired from International cricket he has nurtured hundreds of young cricket talents over the years with his excellent cricket talent and mind.
Rahul Dravid was a captain of Indian Cricket team with effect from 2005 to 2007 and altogether he scored over 24000 International Runs for the country. He was the one who has immensely contributed for making the international cricket as a gentleman game.
While he was playing for Indian cricket team he never complained about the batting position, bowling or fielding in different positions. If his captain asked him to bat at No. 9, he would obey the captain. Whenever he was asked for keeping the wicket, he would obey his captain. If he was asked to field anywhere in the field, he would immediately rush to the new position.
During his long International cricket career, he has taken 48 international centuries, 13,288 Test runs and 10,889 ODI runs. That is the reason Rahul Dravid is often called cricket’s unsung hero.
Even though Saurav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid started playing for India at the same time, within the span of nine test matches, Rahul Dravid replaced Saurav Ganguly at number 3 position in the batting line-up even after India lost miserably at Durban and Cape Town. Rahul Dravid responded with 148 and 81, top-scoring in both innings and he batted No. 3 position rest of his international career.
During the ICC cricket world cup held in 1999, Rahud Dravid was in a good form. During this tournament he has scored 461 runs from 8 games at an average of 65.85 and a strike rate of 85.52. He was the top scorer in this tournament despite India did not reaching at the knockout phase.
Apart from batting well in the 1999 world cup tournament, he played exceptionally in the 2003 ICC world cup as well. In this tournament he has shouldered multiple role such as Batsman as well as wicket keeper that has allowed Indian team to play with an extra batsman.
In 2001, during the second Test played between India and Australia at Eden Gardens stadium, India has displayed one of the greatest come back in the history of cricket. Rahul Dravid’s brilliant knock of 180 runs in the second innings along with VVS Laxman immensely helped India to beat the Aussies in a dramatic encounter. Both the Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman shared a partnership of 376 runs which laid the foundation of India’s win.
In 2002, during India’s tour of England, Rahul Dravid scored 148 runs in the first innings in a four-match Test series against England in 307 balls at Leeds. Altogether he scored 602 runs in the series which helped him to get the man of the series award.
During his entire international cricket career, in most of the innings Rahul Dravid played at 3rd position that is considered as very important in batting order. His main task was to hold the wicket as well as to keep the score board running. He immensely concentrated to perform his duty, so that other players could play freely without the feeling of losing their wicket.
Rahul Dravid is always concerning about budding cricket players. After his retirement from the international cricket, he could have become as a coach of Indian senor team and make lot of money. But instead of opting for the same, he opted for coaching under 19 Indian cricket team to enable them to contribute for Indian cricket in future.
While playing shorter and faster formats of cricket, most of the cricket players tend to get impatient. Rahul Dravid is an example of keeping maximum patient while playing all form of international cricket.
Rahul Dravid was the greatest batsman India has produced and he will be remembered as a player who retired to pave way for the future players. He was a real gentleman of the gentlemen’s game and he will definitely hold a special place in the Indian Cricket forever.
