Rahul Dravid| The Forgotten Captain| Success| Career| Facts| From Captain to Coach of Indian Cricket-Know Me

In India, Cricketers and captains are so applauded and blamed for cricketing fortunes. So you know the ‘Never back down’ captaincy of Ganguly to the ‘cool’ and calculated World cup winning captaincy of Dhoni and finally ‘If you Throw the Stone, I will throw the entire cement truck at you,’ captaincy of Virat Kohli. We Indians love our captains.

But in this glorious Indian captains, waiting in the shadows lies another captain who did what his team needed and took his team to the heights. This is the story of how the captain came back when needed for the country’s future “Rahul Dravid.”

Especially after the 2000 Fixing Scandal, there were the greatest crises in Indian Cricket. Our well-loved captain (Saurabh Ganguly) was in an open feud with the newly appointed foreign coach (Greg Chappell). The Indian Cricket Board had also sided with a coach, the captain was thrown out from the captaincy, and the team. 

Fans were not happy, Indian cricket which was gearing for a new superpower was in trouble, in this disastrous situation the captainship felt into the lap of Dravid. He didn’t get the captainship nor was he awarded the captainship, it felts in his lap. The public concerns went for Rahul being temporary captain till Saurabh comes back.

Success of Indian Team under Dravid Captaincy

• Nobody predicted that the India team become that much successful under Dravid’s captaincy, especially in the test. In the next 2 years, he went on to win 4 out of 7 series losing just 3 out of 15 away tests. Yes! India on foreign pitches losing just 3 series.

• India won series in West Indians after 15 years under his captaincy.

• Won a test match in South Africa for the very first time after 3 consecutive winless series in South Africa.

• India won test series after 20 years in England.

• In ODI, Dravid is the first captain who won his first 4 series.

• Under Dravid Captaincy, India had set a record of 16 consecutive successful chases.

Rahul Dravid’s Batting Career

	Matches	Innings	Runs	H/S	Average	200	100	50
Test	164	286	13,288	270	52.31	5	36	63
ODI	344	318	10,889	153	39.17	0	12	83
T20I	1	1	31	31	31.00	0	0	0
IPL	89	82	2174	75	28.23	0	0	11

Rahul Dravid from Captain to the Coach of Indian Cricket Team

Rahul Dravid is not only a successful captain but also a good batsman, Wicketkeeper & Fielder. Dravid has done whatever his team needed him to do, maybe down the order for batting or becoming the wicket-keeper; he did what was needed and when he thought that the team needed it despite of a historic win in England in 2007; He gave up a captaincy. No discussion, no rumors, no controversy, he made his decision, he gave his paper, and walk away.

Rahul Dravid was to be forgotten in cricket History as a captain, but Moving forward 10 years, Rahul Dravid had to choose between coaching the Delhi Daredevils team or coaching the India A and Under-19 Team. He chose to coach India and then became full time coach for India. There was an inconsistency in Indian under-19 teams winning World Cups and getting knocked out in early stages. Out of 10 Under-19 World Cups, We won 3 Cups but failed to even reach the final of 6. Therefore, winning consistently was the obvious goal.

As soon as Dravid became the coach, one of the first thing he told his team was that winning doesn’t matter, either you win or you lose. He had developed many under-19 Players & India A team players who after played for India's Main Team. He had given the change to each player. He took their practices on grassy pitches with more pace and took them to foreign tour to make players suitable for all conditions.

 When Dravid was coach he made a rule that no player could play more than one Under-19 world cup even if they fit under the age boundary. In other words, Rahul Dravid did everything he could to make his team lose and then taught them to win. As a Result, in the last 3 years, the Indian Team made it to the finals every time Including one Win and 2 Runner Up.

His Team Coached up to 150 players every year out of which 40 to 50 players played under his guidance. Dravid Deposited players like Prithvi Shaw, Rishabh Pant, Mayank Agarwal, Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, Avesh Khan, Mohammed Siraj, Hanuma Vihari, and many more who are now part of the Indian international Team.

So he was finally getting the credit who he is truly deserve, Just After he left job and joined the mismanaged National Cricket Academy to help more players and better future for Indian Cricket. Now he is the Head coach of Indian International Team with the great results.

Facts you will love to know about Rahul Dravid

• Rahul Dravid was born in Indore, Madhya Pradesh growing up in Bangalore in a Marathi-speaking family originally from Tamilnadu.

• Dravid was born on January 11, 1973 in Indore, when India and England were playing a test match in Chennai.

• Sharad Dravid, Rahul’s father was general manager in Kissan Company and Mom Pushpa Dravid worked as a professor. 

  

• Whenever Dravid went out for a game his mother handover a Jam bottler to him. Therefore, his teammate called him with a nickname of “Jammy’.

• He was selected for the Karnataka Junior state team but not for cricket, for hockey we all know he made the right decision there.

• Dravid also played for Scotland when India had a long layoff in 2003.

• Dravid seems like another name for calm and quiet, but there are few occasions when he has lost his cool. During the Pakistan tour in 2004, he had openly said to a journalist who ask him about the match-fixing allegations, ‘Someone gets this guy out of Here’. On another occasion, Dravid had thrown a chair in the dressing room after England had beaten India in Mumbai in 2006.

• Rahul Dravid has earned many nicknames like The Wall, The Great Wall, Mr. Dependable, and Jammy.

• Rahul Dravid made his Test debut against England in Lords and scored 95 runs.

• He scored 2000 runs in 25 matches and 5000 runs in 104 matches.

• Dravid has faced 31,258 deliveries in test cricket in 161 matches. No other batsman has faced more than 30,000.

• He also holds the record for Most Time Spent on the Crease by Test batsman recording 735 hours and 52 min on the pitch.

  

• Dravid was the highest scorer in the 1999 world cup with 461 runs including 3 Half-centuries even though we got out in the quarter-final and yet Dravid remains the highest scorer.

• He has won 11 Test Man of the Match Awards, 8 of them in an overseas Test.

• Dravid is the only player to score a century in all Test Playing countries.

• In T-Twenty, Dravid is the only cricketer to play his debut and retire in the same match in which he scores 31 runs of 21 balls with 3 consecutive sixes.