• Rahul Dravid is the first batsmen who has registered a score of century in all test playing nations.
  • He has played 93 consecutive five day test matches for India
  • The first player to score 10000-run at No.3 position
  • Rahul Dravid has a record of most number of catches in Test Cricket.
  • His highest knock of 270 runs is the longest innings played by an Indian batsmen in terms of minutes.
  • He holds a record for not being dismissed on a duck for 120 innings consecutive one-day matches.
  • He is only the second non-English cricketer to have hit 3 or more centuries in a two different test series in England, the other being Sir Donald Bradman.

Now if some player  has so many achievements on his CV then he ought to be the most famous personality of his national team. But for Rahul Dravid it wasn’t so. Playing alongside some of the finest strokemakers like Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag and VVS Laxman has its own disadvantages.

I started following cricket since ’97-’98 and the first player that I started admiring was Sachin Tendulkar and the Second was none other than Rahul Dravid. No matter he would go for any shots but he was the person who always held the innings together for the Indian cricket team.

Playing in an era when everyone gave too much importance to strokemakers, rules were changed to make the game more suited for dynamic batting; very few gave chance to Rahul Dravid to survive in the limited overs game. But the silent guy that he is, always proved everyone wrong with his bat. The turning point being the ’99 World Cup where he came out as the top scorer. After that he was the backbone of the Indian batting lineup.

The qualities that made him unique were temperament, determination, dedication and his patience. Such was his dedication for his team that he even started to keep wickets for the balance of the team. Changing his batting position whenever the team needed. Such was his patience that bowlers would drift away from their line and length but he wouldn’t fell to the temptation for hitting the good delivery. But at the same time he would let any bad delivery get away.

Surely the world of cricket will miss one great player and the Indian team will find it difficult to find another player of his caliber.