All posts tagged "rahul dravid"

Rahul Sharad Dravid is one of the finest batsmen India has ever produced. ‘The Wall’, ‘Jammy’ and ‘Mr. Dependable’ are some of the nicknames he earned.

Rahul Dravid’s Biography

He was born on 11 January 1973 in Indore but moved to Bangalore. He was pretty good at academics. His father was also a cricket lover and used to take Rahul and his younger brother to watch cricket matches. This is where he developed a liking for cricket. He started playing professional cricket from the age of 12.

Beginning of Cricket Career

He represented the Karnataka state team in U-15, U-17, and U-19 age groups, leading to a place in the state’s Ranji Trophy team. He made his Ranji debut for Karnataka in the 1991-92 season.

He had a terrific first season and aggregated a total of 380 runs at an average of 63.3. It included a couple of hundreds. He was then selected to play for South Zone in the Duleep Trophy.

International debut and rise to prominence

Jammy played his first international match in the ODI series against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka. A couple of months later, he made his Test debut against England at Lord’s, scoring 95 runs in his debut innings.

He received a tag of a slow batsman in the ODIs and had to struggle to get a place in the ODI team.

He overcame this criticism, improved his ODI batting, and cemented his place in the ODI team too. Three years after his debut, he was in top form in the 1999 World Cup. With 461 runs under his belt, he became the highest run-getter of the tournament.

Apart from batting, he kept wickets in ODIs for India for a substantial period. He has affected 84 dismissals as wicketkeeper including 71 catches and 13 stumpings. In Tests, as a non-wicketkeeper, he has a world record of taking the most number of catches (210).

Captaincy

Rahul led India in 25 Tests and won 8 of them, losing 6. The winning percentage of 32 doesn’t quite reflect his captaincy skills. His ODI numbers are better. India won 42 out of the 79 ODIs under him.

Indian cricket team’s debacle at the 2007 World Cup was one of the lowest points in Dravid’s captaincy career.

IPL

Dravid was the icon player of the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) franchisee owned by Vijay Mallya. He was the highest run-scorer for RCB in IPL 2008. He later on also played for the Rajasthan Royals.

He has played 89 matches in the IPL and scored 2174 runs at an average of 28.23 and a strike rate of 115.52. He scored 11 half-centuries in the IPL.

Retirement

Dravid announced his retirement from the limited-overs format in 2011, while he played his last test match against Australia in January 2012.

Dravid’s career in numbers

In his ODI career, he amassed a total of 10,889 runs in 344 matches at an average of 39.17. It included 12 hundred and 83 fifties. He is the 3rd highest run-getter in ODIs for India.

In 164 tests, he accumulated 13288 runs at an average of 52.31. He scored 36 hundred and 63 fifties in his Test career. He is also the 2nd highest run-getter for India in Tests.

Post Retirement

Rahul was appointed to coach the India A and India U-19 teams. Under his guidance, the India-19 team finished as runners up in the 2016 edition of the 2016 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup. Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer, and Sanju Samson are some of his finds.

He also acted as the mentor for IPL franchise Delhi Daredevils for the 2017 edition of the tournament.