In 286 Test innings,Dravid played 31,258 balls. More than anyone else, ever.
He scored runs in tough batting conditions and in overseas Tests that led to wins abroad, a phenomenon that till then had been pretty rare in Indian cricket.
India won 15 Tests abroad during Dravid's career (excluding matches in Bangladesh and Zimbabwe). In those games he scored 1,577 runs at 65.70—both aggregate and average is higher than Tendulkar's.
In all, eight of his 11 Man-of-the-Matc h awards came in overseas
Tests, and five in overseas wins, including unforgettable performances at
Headingley (2002),
Adelaide (2003),
Rawalpindi (2004) and
Kingston (2006).
Tendulkar won only five of his 14 Man-of-the-Match awards
overseas, and only one in a win (excluding Bangladesh). In fact, no
Indian has won as many match awards overseas as Dravid has.
Dravid also scored mountains of runs in drawn tests overseas,
averaging more than 75 in those matches, with
10 centuries in 32 Tests.
Two times he scored a century in each inning of a Test. In fact, he is one of only three Indians to achieve this feat—Sunil Gavaskar and Vijay Hazare are the others.
He is the only batsman at the moment to have scored more than 10,000 runs at No. 3.8 On an average, he played 123 balls per
dismissal, with only Kallis higher at 125 balls for players who have played min 10,000 balls.
When Dravid was at the crease, the team scored 32,039 runs. Given that the entire Indian team scored 89,668 runs, it means 35.6 percent of the total runs that India made in Tests involving
Dravid were scored with him at the crease. The corresponding percentage for Tendulkar is 29.9, and 32.6 for Kallis. It is also
the highest partnership runs scored by any batsman ever.
Dravid is also the only batsman to be involved in more than 700
partnerships. No other batsman has even touched 650 so far.
Dravid has also been involved in more century stands than any other batsman—88.
Dravid is also the only batsman to have 10 or more century stands
with four others; no one else has even managed three.
He has the most Test Match catches— 210—a world record, and
was a great fielder at first short leg, and then slip.
Saurav Ganguly’s is regarded as India’s best captain with 21 Test
wins. In these 21 matches, Dravid has piled up an astonishing 2,571 runs at a record average of 102.84. These 21 matches had nine hundreds (including three double-hundreds ).
Dravid was at the
other end when Laxman became the highest Indian scorer in 2001
when he scored 280 (a 376 run-partnership ) in Kolkata,
was at the other end when Sehwag and Dravid were involved
in a 410 run-partnership in Lahore in 2006,
was at the other end when Sehwag bettered his own record and scored 319 runs against South Africa (268 run- partnership ), and
he was also at the other end when Sehwag scored 293 runs against SL in 2009 (a 237 run- partnership ).
It is not a mere coincidence that the top four of five scores by Indian batsmen have come when Rahul Dravid was
at the other end....
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