Rahul Dravid will retire from International cricket on March 9, 2012

Rahul Sharad Dravid born on 11 January 1973 at Indore in Madhya Pradesh. Also known as “The Wall of Indian cricket” for his steady batting performance. He was an important part of Indian cricket team since 1996. He also played captain’s role from 2005 to 2007. He called in a press conference on friday (9th March 2012) to announce his retirement from international cricket in Bangalore.  However he will continue to play domestic cricket and he has been named as captain for Rajasthan Royals in the upcoming IPL season.
Rahul Dravid the former Indian captain and middle order right handed batsman has decided to say “au revoir” to international cricket on Friday.

Thirty nine years old Rahul Dravid made his debut at Lord’s in 1996 and made 95 runs in his debut match but Saurav Ganguly scored a century on his debut in the same match and stole the lime light . During his career of 16 years he played 164 test matches and made 13,288 runs at the average of 52.31 including 36 hundreds and 63 half centuries. His top score in test match is 270 runs and he also took 210 catches in test match. He scored 4 consecutive hundreds against England in the year 2002. In 344 one day matches he made overs ten thousand runs (10,889) at the average of 39.16 including 12 centuries and 83 half centuries. His highest run in ODI is 153 and took 196 catches and 14 stumps in his ODI career. In 2004 he was awarded as the Test Player of the Year. On 7 August 2011 he declared his retirement from One Day Internationals and Twenty20 matches.

Dravid had set lots of cricketng records during his career. some of the records he holds are as under.

• Rahul is the first and only batsman to score a century in all ten Test playing nations.
• Dravid currently holds the world record for the most number of catches in Test cricket, with more than 200 catches.
• Rahul has also been involved in more than 80 century partnerships with 18 different partners and has been involved in 19 century partnerships with Sachin Tendulkar, which is a world record.
• Rahul became the first non-Australian cricketer to address at the Bradman Oration in Canberra.
• He is the second Indian batsman, after Sachin Tendulkar, and the third international player to reach 12,000 runs in Test cricket.
• On 14 February 2007, Rahul became the sixth player overall and the third Indian (after Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly), to score 10,000 runs in ODI cricket in cricketing history.