Rahul Dravid Biography

Rahul Dravid

Born: January 11, 1973, Indore

Full name: Rahul Sharad Dravid

Spouse: Vijeta Pendharkar (m. 2003)

Current teams: Karnataka cricket team, Rajasthan Royals (#19 / Batsman)

Awards: Wisden Cricketers of the Year, Padma Shri, More

Children: Anvay Dravid, Samit Dravid

Rahul Dravid(born 11 January 1973) is a former Indian cricketer, who captained the national Test and One Day International (ODI) teams. Born in a Marathi family, he started playing cricket at the age of 12 and later represented the state team at the under-15, under-17 and under-19 levels. Hailed as The Wall, Dravid has been described as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket, He was named one of the best five cricketers of the year by Wisden Cricketers' Almanack in 2000 and received the Player of the Year and the Test Player of the Year awards at the inaugural ICC awards ceremony in 2004.In December 2011, he became the first non-Australian cricketer to address at the Bradman Oration in Canberra.

As of October 2012, Dravid is the third-highest run scorer in Test cricket, after Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting, and is only the second Indian cricketer, after Tendulkar to score 10,000 runs both in Tests and in ODIsIn April 2009, he became the only player to score a century in all the ten Test-playing countries. As of October 2012, he holds the record for the most number of catches taken by a player (non-wicket-keeper) in Test cricket, with 210.

In August 2011, after receiving a surprise call in the ODI series against England, Dravid declared his retirement from ODIs as well as Twenty20 International (T20I), and in March 2012, he announced his retirement from international and first-class cricket. He appeared in the 2012 Indian Premier League as captain of the Rajasthan Royals.

Rahul Dravid, along with Glenn McGrath were honoured during the seventh annual Bradman Awards function in Sydney on 1 November 2012. Dravid has also been honoured with the Padma Bhushan award, India's third highest civilian award.

Early life and introduction to cricket

Dravid was born in a Maharashtrian Deshastha Brahmin family in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. His family later moved to Bangalore, Karnataka, where he was raised. Dravid's father worked for a company that makes jams and preserves, giving rise to the later nickname Jammy. His mother, Pushpa, was a professor of Architecture at the University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE), Bangalore. Dravid has a younger brother named Vijay.He did his schooling at St. Joseph's Boys High School, Bangalore and earned a degree in commerce from St. Joseph's College of Commerce, Bangalore.

Dravid started playing cricket at the age of 12, and represented Karnataka at the under-15, the under-17 and the under-19 levels. Former cricketer Keki Tarapore first noticed Dravid's talent while coaching at a summer camp in the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Dravid scored a century for his school team. He also played as wicket-keeper.

Dravid made his Ranji Trophy debut in February 1991, while he was still attending college.Playing alongside future Indian teammates Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath against Maharashtra in Pune, he scored 82 runs in the match, which ended in a draw. His first full season was in 1991–92, when he scored two centuries and finished up with 380 runs at an average of 63.3, getting selected for the South Zone cricket team in the Duleep Trophy.

International Debut

Dravid made his international debut on 3 April 1996 in an ODI against Sri Lanka in the Singer Cup held in Singapore immediately after the 1996 World Cup replacing Vinod Kambli. He wasn't particularly impressive with the bat scoring just three runs before being dismissed by Muttiah Muralitharan but took two catches in the match. He followed it up with another failure in the next ODI of the series scoring just 4 runs before getting run out against Pakistan.

In contrast to his ODI debut, his Test debut was rather successful one. Dravid was selected for the Indian Test squad touring England on the backdrop of consistent heavy scoring in domestic cricket for 5 years, but didn't get a chance in the First Test despite scoring a fifty each against the Gloucestershire and the Leicestershire county in the tour games.He finally made his debut in Test cricket at Lord's on 20 June 1996 against England in the Second Test of the series. Dravid got the chance to be in the playing XI only because of the ankle injury to senior batsman Sanjay Manjrekar. Coming in to bat at no. 7, he forged important partnerships with another debutante Sourav Ganguly and his Karnataka team mates Kumble and Srinath securing a vital lead for his team in testing conditions.Batting for more than 6 hours, he scored 95 runs, missing out on a landmark debut hundred by just 5 runs, before getting out to the bowling of Chris Lewis. He also took his first catch in Test cricket in this match to dismiss Nasser Hussain off the bowling of Srinath. Dravid managed to hold on to his position in the playing XI in the Third Test despite Manjrekar's return. A hundred against British Universities in the tour game further strengthened Dravid's cause. Eventually Ajay Jadeja was dropped to accommodate Manjrekar in the team. Dravid went on to score 84 runs in the first innings of the Nottingham Test.

Personal life

On 4 May 2003 he married Vijeta Pendharkar, a surgeon from Nagpur. They have two children: Samit, born in 2005, and Anvay, born in 2009

Playing style

Dravid is known for his technique, and had been one of the best batsmen for the Indian cricket team. In the beginning, he was known as a defensive batsman who should be confined to Test cricket, and was dropped from the ODI squad due to a low strike rate. However in a period of his career, he began consistently scoring runs in ODIs as well, earning him the award of ICC Player of the year award. His nickname of 'The Wall' in Reebok advertisements is now used as his nickname. Dravid has scored 36 centuries in Test cricket at an average of 53.19; this included five double centuries. In one-dayers, he has an average of 39.49, and a strike rate of 71.22. He is one of the few Indians whose Test average is better at away than at home, averaging almost five runs more in foreign pitches. As of 23 September 2010, Dravid's Test average in abroad is 55.53, and his Test average at home is 50.76; his ODI average in foreign is 37.93 and his ODI average at home is 43.11. Taking those matches in consideration that were won by India, Dravid averages 66.34 runs in Tests and 50.69 runs in ODIs.

Dravid's sole Test wicket was of Ridley Jacobs in the fourth Test match against the West Indies during the 2001–2002 series. While he has no pretensions to being a bowler, Dravid often kept wicket for India in ODIs. Dravid is now a specialist batsman, averaging 63.51 in matches played since 1 January 2000.

Dravid was involved in two of the largest partnerships in ODIs: a 318-run partnership with Sourav Ganguly, the first pair to combine for a 300-run partnership, and then a 331-run partnership with Sachin Tendulkar, which is a world record. He also holds the record for the greatest number of innings played since debut before being dismissed for a duck. His highest scores in ODIs and Tests are 153 and 270 respectively. Each of his five double centuries in Tests was a higher score than his previous double century (200*, 217, 222, 233, 270).

Also, Dravid is the current world record holder for the highest percentage of runs scored in matches won under a single captain, where the captain has won more than 20 Tests. In the 21 Test matches India won under Ganguly's captaincy, Dravid scored at a record average of 102.84 runs; scoring 2571 runs, with nine hundreds, three of them being double-centuries, and ten fifties in 32 innings. He contributed nearly 23% of the total runs scored by India in those 21 matches, which is almost one run out of every four runs the team scored.

He was named one of the Wisden cricketers of the year in 2000. Though primarily a defensive batsman, Dravid scored 50 runs not out in 22 balls (a strike rate of 227.27) against New Zealand in Hyderabad on 15 November 2003, the second fastest 50 among Indian batsmen. Only Ajit Agarkar's 67 runs of 21 balls is faster than that of Dravid.

In 2004, Dravid was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India. On 7 September 2004, he was awarded the inaugural Player of the year award and the Test player of the year award by the International Cricket Council (ICC). On 18 March 2006, Dravid played his 100th Test against England in Mumbai.

In 2006, it was announced that he would remain captain of the Indian team up to the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies.

However after the series against England, he stepped down as the Indian captain due to personal reasons. MS Dhoni took over as ODI captain, whereas Anil Kumble replaced him in test matches.

In 2007, he was dropped from the Indian ODI Squad following poor series against Australia. Dravid went back to play for Karnataka in the Ranji Trophy, scoring 218 runs against Mumbai.

In 2008, he made 93 runs in the first innings of the Perth test, the highest score of the match, to help India win and make the series 1–2. However, he was ignored by selectors for the subsequent one-day tri-series.

After a barren run in Test matches in 2008, Dravid came under increasing media pressure to retire or be dropped. In the Second Test against England in Mohali, he scored 136 runs, putting on a triple-century stand with Gautam Gambhir.

After reaching 10,000 test runs milestone, he said,"It's a proud moment for sure. For me, growing up, I dreamt of playing for India. When I look back, I probably exceeded my expectations with what I have done over the last 10 to 12 years. I never had an ambition to do it because I never believed – it is just a reflection of my longevity in the game."

Dravid is also one of the two batsmen to score 10,000 runs at a single batting position and is the third highest run scorer in Test Cricket, next to Tendulkar and Ponting.