Rahul Dravid Reveals How His Name Was Misprinted In Newspaper After Scoring First Century At School Level

Indian head coach Rahul Dravid shared an unheard storey from his childhood days of playing cricket.

Dravid existed in the times of Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara, who were in the spotlight of the cricket world for their batting prowess.

Rahul Dravid – The Wall

It is often said that Dravid’s contributions and achievements in Indian cricket were always overshadowed by the supremacy of Tendulkar.

Yet Dravid had his own share of records and match-winning moments for India, the Karnataka batter accumulated 24,208 runs across all formats on an international stage.

Dravid is fondly known by his nickname ‘The Wall’ for his stoic resistance in the red-ball format that would eventually frustrate the bowlers. Dravid did his schooling at St. Joseph’s Boys High School and displayed the sparks in batting from a young age.

The editor wrote my name Rahul David instead of Rahul Dravid

When he scored his first century at the school level, Dravid’s name was incorrectly printed in the newspaper and the former skipper mentioned how he learnt a lesson from that incident.

“The editor obviously thought that there was a spelling mistake and there could be no one as Dravid. So, it had to be David, right?” Dravid told Abhinav Bindra on ‘In The Zone’ podcast.

“Because it’s a lot more common name. So, I think it was a good lesson for me as well to realize that while I might be really happy and excited about scoring a 100 in school cricket but I am still not well known. And people don’t even know my name. They can’t even trust my name to be right and have to change it,” he added.

After playing 164 Tests, 344 One-Day Internationals and a solitary T20I match for India, Dravid announced his international retirement in 2012 after India’s tour of Australia from 2011-12.

Dravid has played a massive role in strengthening the roots of Indian cricket at the U19 level. Under him as the head coach, the Prithvi Shaw-led side won the 2018 U19 World Cup in New Zealand.

Dravid replaced Ravi Shastri as the Indian team’s head coach in November 2021 and currently is with the squad in the Caribbean for the white-ball series.

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