Cricket News

‘They can’t even trust my name to be right’ – Rahul Dravid recalls the time when a newspaper made a mistake in his surname

Rahul Dravid, the head coach of the Indian cricket team, who is also regarded as one of the greatest cricketers and icons to have ever represented the nation, has previously talked about how life lessons can be learned from the game of cricket. Dravid, who has 48 centuries to his name in international cricket, opened up about how his first century came in school cricket and recalled how it taught him a lesson that he would carry with him throughout the rest of his life.

Dravid is currently doing his coaching duties on the Indian side in the West Indies, where the Men in Blue are facing the Men in Maroon for three ODIs, followed by five T20Is. India won the first two games of the ODI series, which have been edge-of-seat encounters. Having sealed the series with a game to go, Dravid would hope for the Shikar Dhawan-led side to white-wash the home team.

During the podcast ‘In the Zone, hosted by Olympic gold medalist Abhinav Bindra, Dravid recalled a comical event in which his name was misspelled as “David” in the press. This realization made him think that, despite scoring a century, he wasn’t very well-known at the time.

I learned a very harsh lesson – Rahul Dravid

“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 said recalling the incident.

“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,” Dravid added.

Rahul Dravid learned from that lesson and made sure that he scored tons of runs. He did so and now his name is etched in everyone’s memory. The legend went on to earn the famous nickname called ‘The Wall’ because of his tough tenacity and because he was gutsy.