Rahul Dravid

Rahul Dravid

Rahul Dravid was born on 11th January 1973. He  is a former Indian cricketer, who captained the national Test and One Day International (ODI) teams. Born in a Marathi family, he started playing cricket at the age of 12 and later represented the state team at the under-15, under-17 and under-19 levels. Hailed as The Wall, Dravid has been described as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He 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 address at the Bradman Oration in Canberra.

As of October 2012, Dravid is the third-highest run scorer in Test cricket, after Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting, and is only the second Indian cricketer, after Tendulkar to score 10,000 runs both in Tests and in ODIs. Wisden ranked him the third greatest Test batsman of all time, after Don Bradman and Tendulkar. In April 2009, he became the only player to score a century in all the ten Test-playing countries. 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.

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. Dravid has also been honoured with the Padma Bhushan award, India's third highest civilian award.

Dravid was born in a Maharashtrian Deshastha Brahmin family in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. His family later moved to Bangalore, Karnataka, where he was raised. Dravid's father worked for a company that makes jams and preserves, giving rise to the later nickname Jammy. His mother, Pushpa, was a professor of Architecture at the University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE), Bangalore. Dravid has a younger brother named Vijay. He did his schooling at St. Joseph's Boys High School, Bangalore and earned a degree in commerce from St. Joseph's College of Commerce, Bangalore.

Dravid started playing cricket at the age of 12, and represented Karnataka at the under-15, the under-17 and the under-19 levels. Former cricketer Keki Tarapore first noticed Dravid's talent while coaching at a summer camp in the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Dravid scored a century for his school team. He also played as wicket-keeper, but later stopped keeping wicket on the advice of former Test players Gundappa Vishwanath, Roger Binny,Brijesh Patel and Tarapore.

Dravid made his Ranji Trophy debut in February 1991, while he was still attending college. Playing alongside future Indian teammates Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath against Maharashtra in Pune, he scored 82 runs in the match, which ended in a draw. His first full season was in 1991–92, when he scored two centuries and finished up with 380 runs at an average of 63.3, getting selected for the South Zone cricket team in the Duleep Trophy.