Rahul Sharad Dravid is the famous Indian Cricketer who led the Indian Cricket team from October 2005 to September 2007. He made his international debut in 1996, and since then have been the back bone of the side. He is a right handed batsman, and has scored 35 centuries and 61 half centuries in Test cricket at an average of 53.00, including 5 double centuries. In One Day International, too he had an impressive average of 39.49, with a meticulous strike rate of 71.22.

Rahul Dravid, in 2000, was honoured as one of the top-five Wisden Cricketers of the Year. In the inaugural ICC Awards Ceremony, held in 2004, he was awarded the ICC Player of the Year and the Test Player of the Year. Rahul is admiringly hailed as "The Wall of Indian Cricket" and is regarded by many experts as one the legendary batsmen in the history of cricket. He currently holds multiple cricketing records. He is only the second batsman from India, after the great Sachin Tendulkar, and the third international player to reach 12,000 runs in Test cricket. On 14th February 2007, he became the third Indian (after Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly), and the sixth player overall to score 10,000 runs in ODI cricket in the history of cricket. Dravid also has the prestigious record of taking most number of catches in Test cricket.

Early Life of Rahul Dravid
Rahul Dravid was born in the year 1973 in Indore, Madhya Pradesh into a family of Maharashtrian Deshastha living Karnataka. He grew up in Bengaluru, Karnataka. Dravid studied at the St. Joseph`s Boys High School, Bengaluru, where he earned the nickname Jammy, and then went to the St. Joseph`s College Of Commerce.

Rahul Dravid started playing cricket from a young age, and represented his state at various levels of competition. He played in the under-15, under-17 and under-19 competitions. Keki Tarapore, who was Rahul`s coach at a summer coaching camp at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, was one of the first to spot his talent. He went on to score a marvellous century for his school team on debut. During his initial days, he was keeping wickets along with batting. However, during the later part he, on advice from former Test players Gundappa Vishwanath, Roger Binny, Brijesh Patel and Tarapore, stopped keeping wickets.

Career of Rahul Dravid
He was selected to enter the Ranji Trophy in February 1991 against Maharashtra in Pune, along with his future Indian team-mates Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath. Batting at number 7 he scored a brilliant 82 runs. In the 1991-92 season, which was his first full term season as a domestic cricketer, he scored 2 centuries and ended up making 380 runs with an average of 63.3. This resulted in his selection in Duleep Trophy for South Zone team.

Dravid made a disappointing start to his career making his debut in ODI against Sri Lankan cricket team in the Singer Cup. He then made his debut in the Second Test against England along with Saurav Ganguly.

He was 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. Dravid was top scorer in the 7th World Cup (1999), scoring 461 runs. He is the only Indian cricketer to score two back-to-back centuries at the World Cup. Dravid was the captain during the 2007 cricket world cup in West Indies, where Indian cricket team had a dismal campaign.


Starting 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.

Also, Dravid is the present world record holder for the highest percentage (%) contribution of runs scored in matches won under a single captain.

Personal Life of Rahul Dravid
Dravid married Vijeta Pendharkar, a surgeon from Nagpur on 4th May 2003. They are blessed with two children Samit and Anvay.

Awards and recognitions of Rahul Dravid
Dravid won the award for Wisden Cricketers of The Year in 2000. In 2004, the Padma Shri Award was conferred upon him. In the same year, Dravid also won the inaugural ICC Player of the year award and in addition was named the Test player of the year. He is often called as "The Wall". Dravid has honoured with the Padma Bhushan award, India`s third highest civilian award by the Government of India.

Books Written on Rahul Dravid
Rahul Dravid has 2 biographies written on his life, and they are;
• Rahul Dravid - A Biography written by Vedam Jaishankar
• The Nice Guy Who Finished First written by Devendra Prabhudesai.

Teams That Rahul Dravid Represented International
India (current)
ACC Asian XI
ICC World XI
MCC

Indian first-class
Karnataka
South Zone

Indian Premier League
Royal Challengers Bangalore
Rajasthan Royals

English County
Kent
Scotland

Retirement from International cricket
Dravid played his last ODI innings at Sophia Gardens, Cardiff against England on 16th September 2011. He played a decent innings and scored 69 runs in that particular match.

He made his last T20 appearances for India against England at Old Trafford on 31 Aug 2011. He scored 31(off 21 balls), an innings which will be memorable for his 3 sixes of 3 consecutive deliveries of spinner Samit Patel. He is however slate to appear in the 2012 edition of the Indian Premier League as captain of the Rajasthan Royals.