Rahul Dravid is a former Indian cricketer and captain, widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket.Born in a Marathi family and brought up in Bangalore, he started playing cricket at the age of 12 and later represented Karnataka at the under-15, under-17 and under-19 levels. Hailed as The Wall, Dravid was named one of the best five cricketers of the year by Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack in 2000 and received the Player of the Year and the Test Player of the Year awards at the inaugural ICC awards ceremony in 2004.In December 2011, he became the first non-Australian cricketer to deliver the Bradman Oration in Canberra.
As of October 2012, Dravid is the fourth-highest run scorer in Test cricket, after Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting and Jacques Kallis, and is only the second Indian cricketer, after Tendulkar to score 10,000 runs both in Tests and in ODIs. In 2004, after completing his century against Bangladesh in Chittagong, he became the first and the only player till date to score a century in all the ten Test-playing countries.[9] As of October 2012, he holds the record for the most number of catches taken by a player (non-wicket-keeper) in Test cricket, with 210. Dravid holds a unique record of never getting out for a Golden duck in the 286 Test innings which he has played.
In August 2011, after receiving a surprise call in the ODI series against England, Dravid declared his retirement from ODIs as well as Twenty20 International (T20I), and in March 2012, he announced his retirement from international and first-class cricket. He appeared in the 2012 Indian Premier League as captain of the Rajasthan Royals.
Rahul Dravid, along with Glenn McGrath were honoured during the seventh annual Bradman Awards function in Sydney on 1 November 2012.[12] Dravid has also been honoured with the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan award, India’s fourth and third highest civilian awards respectively.
In 2014, Rahul Dravid joined the GoSports Foundation, Bangalore as a member of their board of advisors. In collaboration with GoSports Foundation he is mentoring India’s future Olympians and Paralympians as part of the Rahul Dravid Athlete Mentorship Programme. Indian badminton player Prannoy Kumar, Para-swimmer Sharath Gayakwad and young Golfer Chikkarangappa S. was part of the initial group of athletes to be mentored by Rahul Dravid.
A two-year stint as captain, following Ganguly’s axing, was less successful, though he did lead the side to series victories in England and the West Indies for the first time in a generation. Just when it seemed his best was behind him, Dravid showed his class once again on the tour to England in 2011. In a series in which India were completely outplayed and none of their other batsmen scored more than 275 runs in the Tests, Dravid amassed 461, including three hundreds, two of them when opening the innings against a high-quality pace attack. However, that was followed by a poor series in Australia, which turned out to be his last, as he announced his retirement soon after returning to India.
Dravid’s immense levels of concentration also came in handy when he was standing in the slips. Most of his catches were taken in that cordon as he overtook Mark Waugh to become the most successful slip catcher in history.
