16 years ago India toured to England to play test series. After losing the first test match India made a couple of changes due to injuries to senior players. Both of these debutant came, One opened the innings and scored a superb 100 other came down at no.6, India in trouble not many remaining after him and scored 95 runs. as everyone know the first was Saurav Ganguly and the next one was Rahul Dravid.
There are loads of loads of great innings he has played. He has won the matches for India or many times has become savior of Team India. No one can forget his amazing partnership with Laxman in kolkata against Australia in 2001. His many great knocks include 233 Against Australia in Australia, 270 in Pakistan against Pakistan, whole series against England in 2011. Players are called great when they perform well in away matches, Dravid has been the master of this thing. He is the first ever batsman to score test Century against each test playing nation on their home soil. The other great thing about Dravid is that he loves to make partnerships. He is the only man who has been involved in 2 over 300 partnership in ODI's. Though not the Sehwag like ODI batsman, Dravid gave a perfect stability to the Indian ODI team. Many criticized him for his slow batting but he proved them wrong with becoming Highest run getter in 1999 world cup. He even did wicket keeping in 70 Odi's as team was needed that badly. He is the perfect example of team man and a gentleman.
Even when he decided to retire he didn't do much fuss about it. He waited for Team India's Australia tour to end and then simply declared his retirement. If a man has played more than 150 tests and 300 Odi's for his country and has scored over 13000 runs in test and 10000 in Odi then you simply call that man with a one word and that is - LEGEND!
For last 12 years India's no.3 position was in safe hands, Team India was protected by The wall. Now I can see a huge empty place on Team India's building as THE WALL HAS LEFT THE TEAM INDIA'S BUILDING..!