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, 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 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. 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 Twenty 20
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 Bhushan award,
India's third highest civilian award.
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.