Rahul Sharad Dravid
Rahul Sharad Dravid (born 11 January 1973) is a cricketer in the Indian national team, of which he has been a regular member since 1996. He was appointed as the captain of the Indian cricket team in October 2005 and resigned from the post in September 2007. Dravid was honoured as one of the top-five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 2000.Dravid was also awarded the ICC Player of the Year and the Test Player of the Year at the inaugural awards ceremony held in 2004.Dravid also holds the record of having taken the most number of catches in Test cricket.
On August 7, 2011 after getting a surprise call to play in ODI series against England he declared his retirement from One Day Internationals and T20.
Popularly hailed as "The Wall of Indian cricket", Dravid is regarded by many to be one of the greatest batsmen in the history of the game. Dravid holds multiple cricketing records. He is the second Indian batsman, after Sachin Tendulkar, and the third international player to reach 12,000 runs in Test cricket. On 14 February 2007, he became the sixth player overall and the third Indian (after Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly), to score 10,000 runs in ODI cricket in cricketing history. He is the first and only batsman to score a century in all ten Test playing nations. With more than 200 catches, Dravid currently holds the world record for the most number of catches in Test cricket.Dravid has also been involved in more than 80 century partnerships with 18 different partners and has been involved in 19 century partnerships with Sachin Tendulkar – a world record.
On November 24, 2011, He became the second international player to reach 13,000 runs in Test Cricket only after Sachin Tendulkar.
On December 14, 2011, he became the first non-Australian cricketer to address at the Bradman Oration in Canberra.
With a strong technique, he has been the backbone for the Indian cricket team. Beginning with the reputation of being a defensive batsman who should be confined to Test cricket, he was dropped from ODIs as he was slow in making runs. 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. His nickname of 'The Wall' in Reebokadvertisements has now become a tribute to his consistency. Dravid has scored 36 centuries in Test cricket at an average of 53.19, including 5 double centuries. In one-dayers too he has an impressive average of 39.49, although at a strike rate of 71.22. He is one of the few Indians who average more at away Test matches than at home, averaging about 5 more runs a match abroad than on Indian pitches. As of 23 September 2010, Dravid's average in overseas Tests stood at 55.53 as against his home Test average of 50.76, and his average for away ODI stands at 37.93 as against home ODI average of 43.11. In matches that India has won, Dravid averages 66.34 in Tests and 50.69 in ODIs.
Dravid's sole Test wicket was that of Ridley Jacobs in the fourth Test 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. He has since delegated the wicket-keeping gloves, first to Parthiv Patel and more recently to Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Dravid is now purely a batsman, one who has averaged 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 the present world record. He also holds the record for the greatest number of innings since debut before being dismissed for a duck. His highest scores in ODIs and Tests are 153 and 270 respectively. Uniquely, 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(%) contribution 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 Sourav Ganguly's leadership, Dravid played his part in every single one of those wins, scoring at a record average of 102.84 and piling up an astonishing 2571 runs, with nine hundreds – three of them double-centuries – and ten fifties in 32 innings. He contributed nearly 23% of the total runs scored by India 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 2000. Though primarily a defensive batsman,Dravid has scored 50 not out in 22 balls(Strike Rate-227.27)vs NewZealand in Hydrabad on 15 Nov 2003,second fastest 50 among Indians.Only Ajit Agarkar 67 of 21 balls is faster than 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 by the International Cricket Council, ICC (associated image below). Dravid's batting average of 95.46 in the past year has made him the only Indian to be in the Test team of the year. On 18 March 2006, Dravid played his 100th Test against England in Mumbai.
In 2005, a biography of Rahul Dravid written by Devendra Prabhudesai was published, 'The Nice Guy Who Finished First'.
In the 2005 ICC Awards he was the only Indian to be named to the World one-day XI.
In 2006, it was announced that he would remain captain of the Indian team up to the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies.
After the England Series however, he stepped down as captain of India due to personal reasons. Mahendra Singh Dhoni took over as ODI captain. 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 against Mumbai.
In 2008, he made 93 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, putting on a triple-century stand with Gautam Gambhir.
After reaching 10,000 test runs milestone, he was quoted saying, "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 now the second highest run getter in Test Cricket next to Sachin Tendulkar.
0 comments:
Post a Comment