AHMEDABAD, India, (Reuters) – Former India captain Rahul Dravid joined an elite quartet yesterday when his unbeaten 177 on the opening day of the first test against Sri Lanka took him past 11,000 test runs.
Dravid, 36, followed compatriot Sachin Tendulkar, West Indian Brian Lara and Australians Allan Border and Ricky Ponting past the 11,000 mark with his 27th test hundred.
“I’ve been playing for a long time. I’ve been around the scene for a long time. It’s nice. I guess it is something about my longevity,” he told reporters.
“I’ve been able to be consistent over pretty decent periods of time which has helped me stack up these numbers. It’s a nice thing.
“There are some great people on that list, people I have truly admired and watched and I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of playing with on that list.
“It’s just nice to be up there, nice to score runs especially in the context of a game like today, to make it happen when your team really needed it, it just makes it all that special.”
Dravid, who has also scored more than 10,000 one-day international runs, said he felt the fluency had returned to his batting.
“I felt pretty fluent right through the innings, pretty much in control of my game. It was one of those days you just knew things were really going for you and you really want to cash in and make a big one and I am glad I was able to do that,” he said.
“It’s nice to get this feeling of batting the way I am.
“I’ve been through some tough times couple of seasons. I thought the flow has sort of come back this year a little bit for me personally in various forms of the game.
“But yeah, I’d say it was probably one of my most fluent efforts over the last few seasons definitely.”