Rahul Dravid's Speech as a Chief guest at BITS Pilani Convocation 2013, Goa

Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS Pilani) is one of the well known deemed institutions in India. The institution has its campuses at Hyderabad, Goa, Pilani and in Dubai. This institute is said to be fully residential and it was started in 2004 and was officially inaugurated in 2006. The first ever convocation of the institute in Goa campus was said to be held in 2011. And the convocation for the year 2013 was held on 11th of this month(11-Aug-2013). The highlight of the convocation ceremony was the presence of Mr.Consistency 'Rahul Dravid' :) Just imagine how lucky were those 2013 batch graduates of BITS !!!!!

It is obvious that every graduate would be delighted about his/her convocation day, but that day at BITS with Rahul Dravid as chief guest would have been a double delight for everyone there. To have such an inspiring person who has earned respect both on and off the field , is really a remarkable and memorable moment for all those who aspire to succeed in life.

Here I'm sharing his speech which lasted only about 12 mins, but he has conveyed his message eloquently in that short time.

Rahul Dravid's inspiring speech at the Sharada Mandir School, Goa

Hi all. Today I would like to share one of the wonderful speech of Dravid at the Sharada Mandir school at Goa last year. Rahul Dravid has been invited for distributing the Annual awards to the students of Sharada Mandir School on August 4th,2012. There during his speech, he shared three most important factors with the students that has helped him in his career and life.

Image Source : My collections from the Web


Here's the link of his entire speech : http://oheraldo.in/News
Source : Herald, Goa

Amidst that entire speech, my favorite part is where Dravid shared his own experience. Since Dravid is already known for his on-field patience, here's an incident where he felt and learnt about patience off the field as well.

Dravid said "My wife and I have built a new home with a lovely garden which houses lovely bamboo trees. I got reading on the Chinese bamboo and learned that the tree takes 5 years, 3 months to grow to its whole height of 80 feet. Yet, for the first 5 years, you can only see a tiny green shoot, but in the next 90 days, it grows into a full-fledged tree. But in those first 60 months, it is growing its strong network of roots underground, to support the tree. In an era of instant gratification, we settle for shorter trees, but remember patience has its reward. These are your years of growing that strong network of roots but be sure when you finally achieve your success, people will call it 'overnight success'. If only they knew of the Chinese     bamboo!"

I hope this particular part of his speech would have been very motivating and inspiring not just for those school children but also for all. This one added some more hope to practice 'Patience'.

On the Journey to Dravid's maiden Test century

         As Dravid made his debut in the second test against England in 1996, he fell short of 5 runs to reach his first Test hundred. Later in the next match (i.e. third test for India and Dravid's second Test) India was looking to level the series as it was the last Test of the series.. Earlier England won the first Test, the second Test was drawn at the Lord's, hence the third and final one played at Nottingham was the series decider.. India won the toss and elected to bat first. As the openers in that time Rathore and Mongia fell short in single digits, Ganguly and Tendulkar batted brilliantly scoring their centuries 136 and 177 respectively. Both of them added 255 runs for the team. Then came in Manjrekar and captain Azharuddin. The captain was out for 5 runs.. Then came in Rahul Dravid at number 7. Dravid once again exhibited his techniques and reached his half century. As Dravid was at 61,  Manjrekar fell out for 53 runs. Now Dravid was left alone with the lower order to help his team. Dravid did his part to the team by scoring his 84 runs and this brought India's total to 521.. Once again Dravid fell short of century as like in his first Test, but this time in eighties. The third and final match was drawn and England won the series.

Dravid's debut series would have been disappointing ,  but his individual scores had reasons to be in limelight. His average from two tests were 62.33, third highest debut average after Ganguly and Tendulkar. Thereafter the Indian team returned from England tour, India played only Test match against Australia at New Delhi where Dravid scored 40 and India won the only Test match. Later in November 1996, South Africa toured India for three match Test series, where Dravid scored 24 & 34 , 31 & 23 , 7 & 56 respectively in three tests in which India won the first and last Test to win the series. As finishing the series at home, the Indian Team toured to South Africa to play three Test against the same opponents. The south African pitch was not the one that is similar as in India.. It is highly known for its fast bowling pitches. Every cricket enthusiasts knows this.

Dravid's Debut in Cricket - Part 2

       As like 1992-93 season, Dravid went on with his impressive knocks in 1993-94 season as well.. He scored 93 runs for Rest of India in the Irani Trophy under the captaincy of Sanjay Manjrekar against punjab.. Later on he represented South zone in the Duleep Trophy scoring 67 and 148 against central zone..This made the national selectors to call Dravid for replacing Manoj Prabakar and Nayan Mongia due to some slow batting issues in the tri-series comprising West Indies and New Zealand.. Despite being selected for the national team, Dravid couldn't make into the playing eleven amidst many stalwarts in the team.. 

Continuing back in first class matches, Dravid was playing his part for SAARC cup, Board President's XI..At the end of 1994-95 season, Dravid scored more than 1000 first class runs.. Then comes the 1995-96 Ranji season  in which Dravid has an average of 80.66 in just 11 matches with 5 centuries and 3 half-centuries.. Despite having loads of runs under his bat, Dravid couldn't make into the selection of World Cup 1996.. It was all because the presence of some experienced players like Sidhu, Kambli, Ajay Jadeja, Sanjay Manjrekar, Sachin Tendulkar and the captain Azharuddin.. Later Dravid was selected for Singer Cup series..Dravid made his ODI debut on 3rd April, 1996 against Sri Lanka in which he scored only 3 runs...Then he got to score 107 runs, his maiden ODI century against Pakistan in 1997 at M.A.Chidambaram stadium, Chennai.

Here's the beginning - Brick by brick

 Rahul Dravid -  The name you can see anywhere in the batting order in the history of Indian cricket.

As a die-hard fan of RD, I would like to start describing about this selfless Indian Cricketer with one of my favorite quote on him by N.S.Sidhu, former Indian Cricketer. I hope this would be a favorite one for any RD fans..
Here it is

"Rahul Dravid is a player who would walk on broken glass if his team asks him to..."

That was exactly a fact.. It clearly proves about him that he is a perfect 'Team-man'. Apart form this, he is widely respected not only by own his team-mates ,but also by all cricketers from other nations..

Lets start off from the childhood of Rahul Dravid :

Rahul Sharad Dravid was born in a maharashtrian brahmin family in Indore, Madhya Pradesh.
Later his family moved on to Bangalore, Karnataka where he has grown up. Rahul's father is Mr.Sharad Dravid who was working in a jam company(kissan) which led dravid to be called as 'jammy' by his friends & teammates. Rahul's mother is Mrs.Pushpa Dravid who was a professor of Architecture at the UVCE, Bangalore. Rahul has a younger brother named vijay.