Name : Rahul Sharad Dravid.
Nick name : The wall, Jammy (childhood).
Date of Birth : January 11, 1973.
Place of Birth : Indore, Madhya Pradesh, INDIA.
Batting Style : Right Handed Batsman.
Bowling Style : Right Arm off spin.
Role : Middle order batsman in Test’s.
ODI Debut : vs. Sri Lanka at Singapore in 1995-96.
TEST Debut : vs. England at Lords in 1996.
Playing Teams : Karnataka, INDIA&Bangalore Royal Challengers (captain).
ONE DAY INTERNATIONAL CARRIER
About Batting ::
Matches : 333(As on April2008)
Runs : 10,585
Best : 153 vs. New Zealand@Hyderabad in 1999.
Strike Rate : 78.48
Average : 39.49
100’s : 12
50’s : 81
About Bowling ::
Matches : 333
Wickets : 4
Best figures : 2/43 with South Africa, Kochi in 99-2000.
Economy : 5.67run’s per over.
Average : 42.50
Catches : 193
Stumping’s : 14 .
TEST CARRIER ::
About Batting ::
Matches : 120*(As on April 2008).
Runs : 10,031.
Best : 270 with Pakistan at Rawalpindi in 2004.
Strike Rate : 44.65.
Average : 55.41.
100’s : 25.
50’s : 51.
About Bowling::
Matches : 120*.
Wickets : 1.
Best figures : 1/18.
Economy : 4.84run’s per over.
Average : 39.00.
Catches : 166
Dravid’s personal information::
Dravid’s Full name is Rahul Sharad Dravid. His father name is Sharad and brother name is Vijay. He was born in Indore, Madhya Pradesh into a Maharashtrian Brahmin family, but he grew up in Bangalore, Karnataka. As he was born in Madhya Pradesh he speaks Marathi including Kannada. Dravid’s father worked in kissan company, a company which would produce jams and thus Dravid named as Jammy by his teammates at St.Joseph’s, Bangalore. He made his career from this college only. He married Dr.Vijetha Pendharkar on may04, 2003 specialist in surgeon from Nagpur and he also had one son who was named as Samit.
Starting from his carrier ::
He started his international career in the year 95-96 playing against Sri Lanka in Singapore, but when we take his life time career he started playing cricket at the age of 12. He was performing so well and that created interest in the Rahul more and more to play cricket. He was also selected as a team member of under-15 and under-17 state level. His coach was Keki Tarapore. Actually he got selected for Ranji Trophy in February 1991 against Maharastra in pune. Even though he was playing cricket for his team he also concentrated on his studies well. His performance was not so well in the beginning of his career in one dayers against Sri Lankan team in the singer cup in Singapore, so he was picked later for Test England along with Sourav Ganguly and there he scored majestic 95, but his maiden century came against South Africa when he batted at number3 position in Johannesburg. He scored 148 in first innings and 81 in second innings remaining the top scorer of the match and won man of the match award. He went on scoring half centuries for nearly about 18months in home and away series, but he could not able to reach triple figures. He worked on it in the nets and scored his second century in 98 against Zimbabwe.
He made his first double century playing against Zimbabwe in Delhi along with 70* in the second innings helped India to victory, and before that match he was loosing his form and it was the first match to score above 50runs after 12 months. He made his remark while playing against Australia at Kolkata in 2001, he has produced 376 runs for the fifth wicket in the second innings of the match with V.V.S Laxman in which Dravid scored 180 and Laxman scored his career best knock of 281, which made the greatest comeback victories in the history of the game. Later in the year 2002 he made 4 consecutive centuries against England (3) and West Indies (1). In the 2003-04 season Dravid scored three double centuries, one each against New Zealand, Australia and Pakistan. Playing against Australia at Adelaide, Dravid and Laxman again proved that they simply best, their batting pair was unbreakable to get a wicket for Australians, they put on 303 partnership in the response of massive 556 from Australians in which they were shot only 33runs of Australians first innings score where Dravid went to made 233 to achieve that score. He could not forget that innings because that made to win the Test match and square the series against Australia in Australia’s soil.
After naming him as a captain::
As Dravid became dependable batsman of Indian cricket team, so he was given to lead India in the world cup 2007. He was highest scorer in 1999 world cup scoring 461 runs and he was vice captain of Indian cricket team in 2003 world cup where he played 3 roles in that tournament i.e., one as a middle order batsman, wicket keeper and vice captaincy of team. In order to add additional batsman into team he played dual role.
Beginning of his captaincy the team was doing so good, that everyone thought that it was the good decision by giving him to lead team India. He is tied with Sachin Tendulkar in fourth place for having captained India in the most victorious matches. But under his captaincy the team could not reach in super8’s in the world cup 2007. As team did not perform well in that tournament they were out by playing only 3 league matches in which they won one match against Bermuda and lost 2 against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, as a result they were out of race in that world cup. After return from the world cup they took their revenge against Bangladesh by beating them 3-1 in one day series and 2-0 in Test series in Bangladesh and from there on they went to Malaysia played against South Africa and won the series by beating 2-1. In this process the team was performing well but Dravid lost his form could not make up his contribution for his team. The people were expecting a lot from him as he was good batsman.
He also has some achievements under his Captaincy……
~ Rahul Dravid is the first individual captain to lead team India in a Test match victory played against South Africa in South Africa.
~ During his captaincy he managed to hit 10,000 runs in both Test and ODI format.
~ Under his captaincy India won Test series against the West Indies in West Indies since 1971.
Dravid in Indian premier League(IPL) ::
Dravid named as captain of Bangalore Royal Challengers team, which was very expensive team among all in IPL owned by “Vijay Maliya”. The team included very good players like Jaques Kallis, Mark Boucher, Wasim Jaffer….Though Dravid is a back bone of Indian Cricket team and good technical batsman but he is not a bigger hitter of cricket ball. T20 format is that where every player need a strong physic and technique to hit the ball out of the park, but here in Dravid’s team all were good technical players but they were not T20 specialist, they were all good enough for test and ODI’s except Mark Boucher. In their Opening and first match of IPL, they lost by big margin of runs their bowlers were smashed all over the park in their home town Bangalore. They won only 4 of 14 matches they played in IPL. They lost to every team they played in IPL. In the beginning Dravid was not playing so well but after on he performed well but his teammates did not back him up. At any of the tournament his team was no where in the hunt of semis. They could only manage to win 4 matches of 14 they played
Some Achievements and records of Dravid ::
~ He was named one of the Wisden Cricketers of the year 2000.
~ Dravid was awarded the “Padma Sri” by the government of India in2004.
~ He was awarded inaugural player of the year award and Test player of the year in 2004 by the ICC.
~ He has involved in the most century partnerships in the Test history (72).
~ He is the only player to score Test centuries against every Test playing nation away from home.
~ He has a record of hitting four consecutive Test centuries in four consecutive innings..
~ Dravid has played 150 innings off 94 Tests at number3 position. He had scored 7677 runs at this position and both of these feats are world records.
~ Dravid is the only to score 5 double centuries (200* vs. Zimbabwe, 217 vs. England, 222 vs. England, 233 vs. Australia, 270 vs. Pakistan).
~ He is involved in the highest partnership in the history of ODI cricket with a 331 run partnership along with Sachin.
~ He is third Person to score more number of half centuries (81) behind Sachin (89) and Inzamam (83).
~ He has 3 Man of Series awards (England, Australia and West Indies) and 9 Man of the Match awards in Test cricket (South Africa, West Indies (2), England (2), New Zealand, Australia, and Pakistan (2)).
~ He has 14 Man of the Matches in ODI matches (Pakistan(2), South Africa(2), New Zealand(2), West Indies(3), Zimbabwe(1), Sri Lanka(2), UAE(1), England(1)).