RAHUL DRAVID’S LIFE STORY

Rahul the wall of cricket

Rahul Dravid born 11 January 1973 is an Indian cricketer, and a former captain of the Indian national cricket team, of which he has been a regular member since 1986. Dravid is the third Indian batsman, after Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar, to have scored 10,000 runs in test cricket. On 14 February 2007, he became the sixth player in history and the third Indian, after Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, to score 10,000 runs in ODI cricket. In September 2007, he resigned as captain of India team. He is the captain as well as the Icon Player in the Royal Challengers Bangalore team in the Indian Premier League.
Is Rahul Dravid not a Top batsman
According to ICC, the Wall did not deserve to be placed above than the 30th rank in the new “best ever” ratings issued by the board. Whereas Kumara Sangakara, Matthew Hayden, Mike Hussey, Kevin Pietersen and Neil Harvey could easily find a berth for themselves in the top-29. The master blaster Sachin in also not in Top 20, even he got the rank of 26th according to ICC all time best Test batsman rankings.

Rahul Dravid Comeback in Test Team

After a barren run in Test matches in 2008, Rahul 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. This ton helps his team to draw the test and clinched the series 1-0 against England.

Rahul - The Wall Personal life

Rahul was born 11 January 1973 in Indore, Madhya Pradesh into a Maharashtrian Deshastha family living in Karnataka. His paternal ancestors were Iyers from Thanjavur. He grew up in Bangalore, Karnataka. He speaks Marathi and Kannada. He has a younger brother, Vijay. Both the brothers grew up in a serious and simple middle class atmosphere. Dravid's father worked for Kissan Products Ltd, a company known for jams and preserves and thus he earned the nickname Jammy from his teammates at St. Joseph's, Bangalore. And his mother, Pushpa, was a professor of Architecture at Bangalore University. Rahul Dravid has a degree in commerce from St Joseph's College of Commerce Bangalore, Karnataka. On 4 May 2003, Rahul married Dr. Vijeta Pendharkar, a surgeon from Nagpur and on 11 October 2005, their son, Samit, was born.

Rahul Dravid - The wall in IPL

Rahul Dravid is the Captain and Icon player of the Bangalore Royal Challengers owned by Vijay Mallya. But his team not done well in the first season of the IPL tournament and comes in the last place. For this season it is yet not confirm will Rahul Dravid lead the team or not.

Honours of Rahul Dravid - The wall

* In 2004, Rahul was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India.
* On 7 September, 2004, Rahul Dravid was awarded the inaugural Player of the year award and the Test player of the year by the International Cricket Council, ICC .
* In the 2005 ICC Awards Rahul Dravid was the only Indian to be named to the World one-day XI.

Rahul Personality

Rahul has been one of the main pillars of the Indian batting with his blend of technical Proficiency & stylish strokes. His strokes are so perfect technically that he is called as The "wall" of the Indian Team. His batting style was regarded slow for the ODI’s initially but with His imaginative placing of the ball & innovative strokes he made himself as an integral part of The Indian team for both Tests as well as ODI’s. His temperament for both the versions of the Game is exemplary and has earned him respect from all the other players. He was verily the batsman Of the 1999 World Cup with two hundreds and the highest aggregate. For this, he was named As Wisden cricketer of the year, one of the few Indians to receive this special accolade. His good and innocent looks make him very popular among the girls.
Ever since he burst upon the scene at Lord's in 1996, Rahul Dravid has been one of the main pillars of the Indian batting with his blend of technical proficiency and stylish strokes. In a side bristling with dashing batsmen, he has frequently played the sheet anchor role to perfection. He was verily the batsman of the 1999 World Cup with two hundreds and the highest aggregate. For this, he was named as Wisden cricketer of the year 2003, one of the few Indians to receive this special accolade.
For sheer consistency, Dravid has few equals and has maintained a Test career average of over 50. His temperament is exemplary and his concentration legendary. A batsman who revels in a crisis, Dravid, against New Zealand in January 1999, joined the ranks of Vijay Hazare and Sunil Gavaskar as one of only three Indians to have scored a century in each innings in a Test. The poor run in Australia in 1999-2000 was only a passing phase and he returned to top form the next season, including notching up his first double century in Tests. Named as ``The Wall'' for obvious reasons, the modest, unassuming and well behaved Dravid is one of the most popular and instantly recognizable players in the Cricket world.

Rahul Early years of cricket
Rahul Dravid started playing cricket at the age of 12, and represented the state at the under-15, under-17 and under-19 level. Rahul's talents were first spotted by former cricketer Keki Tarapore who was coaching at a summer coaching camp at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. He went on to score a century on debut for his school team. Along with the batting, he was keeping wickets. However, he later stopped keeping wickets on advice from former Test players Gundappa Vishwanath, Roger Binny, Brijesh Patel and Tarapore.
Rahul was selected to make his Ranji Trophy debut in February 1991 against Maharashtra in Pune (while still attending college at St. Joseph's College of Commerce in Bangalore), alongside future Indian teammates Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath, scoring 82 in a drawn match after batting in the No. 7 position. His first full season was in 1991-92, when he scored two centuries to finish with 380 runs at an average of 63.3 , and was selected for South Zone in the Duleep Trophy.

International career of Dravid

Rahul Dravid had a disappointing start to his career making his debut in one-dayers against Sri Lankan cricket team in the Singer Cup in Singapore immediately after World Cup in March 1996, replacing Vinod Kambli. Subsequently, he was dropped from the team, until he was picked again for the tour of England.
He then made his debut in the Second Test against England along with Sourav Ganguly,when Sanjay Manjrekar got injured after the first Test match on that tour.
Rahul scored 95 and held his position on Manjrekar's return for the Third Test, scoring 84. After moderate performance in home series against Australia and South Africa, Dravid broke through on the 1996-97 tour of South Africa. He batted at No. 3 in the third Test in Johannesburg, scoring his maiden century with 148 and 81, the top score in each innings to claim his first man of the match award 19. He made his first half-century against Pakistan in the Sahara Cup in 1996, scoring 90 in his 10th ODI.
In the 18 months ending in mid-1998, he played in an away series against the West Indies, home and away series against Sri Lanka and a home series against Australia, he scored consistently, with 964 runs at an average of 56.7. He scored eleven half-centuries but was unable to convert them to triple figures. He scored his second century in late 1998 against Zimbabwe in a one-off Test match, top-scoring in both innings with 148 and 44, but was unable to prevent an Indian defeat. He became the third Indian batsman after Vijay Hazare and Sunil Gavaskar to score centuries in both innings of a match during the 1999 New Year's Test match against New Zealand with 190 and 103* to force a draw . He had a moderate season in the subcontinent in early 1999, scoring 269 runs at an average of 38.42 with one century before scoring 239 at an average of 39.8 including a century against New Zealand in late 1999. This was followed by a poor away series against Australia and another poor home series against South Africa, accumulating just 187 runs at an average of 18.7. He then scored 200*, his first double century, against Zimbabwe in Delhi, which along with 70* in the second innings helped India to victory. It was the first time he had passed 50 in 12 months and he followed this with a 162 in the following Test, giving him 432 runs in the two match series at an average of 432.

In the second test of a three match test series against Australia at Kolkata in 2001, Dravid joined hands with VVS Laxman to produce one of the greatest comeback victories in the history of the game. Following on, the pair put on 376 runs for the fifth wicket in the second innings of the match. Dravid scored 180 while Laxman made 281. Though Dravid ended up second-best, it remains one of his greatest performances till date. Later that year in Port Elizabeth against South Africa, he made a crucial match-saving 87 runs in the second innings to deny South Africa the win.
2002 was the year, when Dravid started to emerge out of Tendulkar's shadow and established himself as India's premier Test batsman. In the month of April, at Georgetown, West Indies in first test match of the series, he scored an unbeaten 144 in the first innings after being hit by a Mervyn Dillon delivery.

Later that year, he raked up four consecutive centuries against England and West Indies. In August 2002, against England at Headingley Stadium, Leeds in the third test match of the series, he scored a 148 in the first innings on a seamer-friendly to set up a famous Indian win. He won the man of the match award for this performance. Dravid's astonishing aggregate of 602 runs in the four match test series against England also fetched him the man of the series award. In 2003-2004 season, Dravid scored three double centuries, one each against New Zealand, Australia and Pakistan. Against Australia at Adelaide in second match of the four match series, the batting pair of Dravid and VVS Laxman proved to be Australia's nemesis again. In the first innings, India were looking down the barrel at 4 wickets down for 85 runs in reply to Australia's massive 556 when the duo joined hands. By the time their partnership was broken, the pair had put on 303 runs. Laxman was dismissed for 148 while Dravid went on make 233. At that time, this was the highest individual score by an Indian batsman overseas. By the time Dravid was done, India was only 33 short of Australia's first innings score. Dravid followed this with an unbeaten 72 under immense pressure in the second innings to set up a famous victory. Dravid scored 619 runs in that four-match series against Australia at an average of 103.16 and won the man of the series award. During the later part of the season, Dravid, in Ganguly's absence, led India to its first test victory over Pakistan in Pakistan in the first test match at Multan. In the third and the final match of the series At Rawalpindi, Dravid stroked a masterly 270 to take India to a historic test series win over Pakistan.

Rahul Career Heights

With a strong technique, he has been the backbone for the Indian cricket team. His nickname of 'The Wall' in Reebok advertisements has now become a tribute to his consistency. Dravid has scored 26 centuries in Test cricket at an average of 53.11, including 5 double centuries. In one-dayers though he has an average of 39.49, and a strike rate of 71.22. He is one of the few Indians who average more at away matches than at home, averaging over 10 more runs a match abroad than on Indian pitches. As of 9 August, 2006, Dravid's average in overseas Tests stood at 65.28 as against his overall Test average of 55.41, and his average for away ODI stands at 42.03 as against overall ODI average of 39.49. In matches that India has won, Dravid averages 78.72 in Tests and 53.40 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.

Dravid downfall

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.

Criticism
* One of Dravid's most debated decisions was taken in March 2004, when he was standing in as captain for an injured Sourav Ganguly. The Indian first innings was declared at a point when Sachin Tendulkar was at 194 with 16 overs remaining on Day 2.
* Rahul Dravid has had a mixed record when leading India in Tests. India lost the Karachi Test in 2006, giving Pakistan the series 1-0. In March 2006, India lost the Mumbai Test, giving England its first Test victory in India since 1985, enabling Flintoff's men to draw the series 1-1. While the loss in Karachi could be put down to several Indian batsmen playing badly, the defeat in Mumbai was arguably the result of Dravid's decision to bowl first on a flat dry pitch which later deteriorated and ended with an Indian collapse in the run chase.
* He was criticised by Vijay Mallya for not picking the team with right balance since Dravid's team Bangalore Royal Challengers was the second last team in the 2008 Indian Premier League.
* After India failed to qualify for the Finals of the DLF Cup, Indian skipper Rahul Dravid was criticised by former all-rounder Ravi Shastri who said that he was not assertive enough and let Greg Chappell make too many decisions.