When ‘Gods’ fail, they hide behind the wall: Wishes pour in on Rahul Dravid’s 47th birthday

Wishes poured in as former Indian captain Rahul Dravid turned 47 on Saturday. Dravid, commonly known as ‘The Wall’ is still regarded as one of the best No.3 batsmen that India have ever produced in Test cricket. Dravid, who made his debut for India in 1996 at Lord’s, went on to play 164 Tests, 334 ODIs and 1 T20I in an illustrious career lasting for over 16 years. Dravid is still the only Indian apart from Sachin Tendulkar to have scored more than 10,000 runs in Tests and ODIs. Regarded as one of the best Test cricketers, Dravid did have very good ODI numbers to his credit too. He scored 10889 runs in 334 ODIs at an average of 39.16 but his record in Tests was impeccable – 13288 runs at a staggering average of 52.31 including 36 hundreds, once again the best after Tendulkar among Indian batsmen.

BCCI decided to wish Dravid on his birthday by highlighting his ODI credentials by sharing the video of his 153-run knock against New Zealand

The BCCI posted a video of Dravid’s knock and captioned the post as–”Wishing The Wall – Rahul Dravid a very Happy Birthday. His exploits in Test cricket are well known but we thought we would relive one of his knocks in ODIs against New Zealand. #HappyBirthdayRahulDravid”.

 

Dravid knock of 153 against the Kiwis in 1999 at Hyderabad included 15 fours and two sixes. He was involved in a 331-run partnership with Sachin Tendulkar, enabling the side to post a total of 376/2 in the allotted fifty overs. India went on to register a win by 174 runs in the match.

Former cricketer VVS Laxman also wished Dravid and tweeted- “Wishing my good friend Rahul Dravid a very special birthday and a wonderful year filled with love, happiness, and prosperity”.

 

  

 

 

 

 

Dravid is the only player to be involved in two 300-plus ODI partnerships.

Dravid announced his retirement from international cricket in 2012 but did play in the IPL till 2014 for Rajasthan Royals. After briefly handling coaching duties with IPL franchise Delhi Capitals (then Daredevils) , Dravid took over as the head coach of India A and India U 19s. Under his guidance, the junior India sides achieved remarkable success and players like Rishabh Pant, Manish Pandey, Navdeep Saini, Shubman Gill, Prithvi Shaw and Mayank Agarwal made their into the senior side.

Dravid was the coach of the India U19 side that won the World Cup in New Zealand in 2018.

Dravid is currently the head of cricketing affairs at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore.

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