Rahul Dravid, popularly known as ‘Wall’ of the Indian cricket team, will be celebrating his birthday tomorrow. Dravid was born on January 11, 1973, at Indore in Madhya Pradesh. He began his Test career against England in June 1996.
Rahul is one of the special batsmen who played his first Test at Lords called the ‘Mecca’ of cricket. In the Lord’s test under the captaincy of Mohammad Azharuddin in 1996, Rahul Dravid was inducted into the team replacing injured Sanjay Manjrekar. Playing an innings of 95 runs in his debut match, Dravid proved that he was made for something special. In the same match, another debutant, Sourav Ganguly scored a century (131 runs) and proved his mettle & and took all the accolades.
In his 16-year-long international cricket career, Rahul Dravid played every role for the Indian cricket team when the team needed him. Rahul Dravid was never a regular wicketkeeper, but when team India needed the additional wicketkeeper, he was there to fill the role.
Dravid’s career
Rahul Dravid scored 13288 runs in 164 Test matches for India, including 36 centuries, 63 half-centuries. He scored 10889 runs with the help of 12 centuries and 83 semi-centuries by playing 344 matches for India in ODI.
He has gathered 10,000 runs in both Tests and ODIs.
Rahul Dravid’s Records:
Rahul Dravid has played the most number of balls in Test matches, which is a very special record. Rahul has faced 31,258 balls in his 16-year career and spent a total of 736 hours at the crease, which is the world record. This record is enough to explain why he is known as ‘The Wall’ of Indian Cricket.
Rahul Dravid was the first batsman in the world to have a century against all the 10 teams in the world who played Test cricket.
Rahul also has the most number of catches in Test as a fielder. He has 210 catches in Test cricket. This is the highest catches taken by any non-wicketkeeper player.
He is the only player to be involved in two 300-plus ODI partnerships.
