Harbhajan Singh lauds Rahul Dravid's catching ability in special throwback video: Watch

Former Indian cricket captain Rahul Dravid was one of the best fielders in world cricket during his playing days. His batting prowess often overshadowed his fielding abilities. Not many credit Dravid for having had one of the safest pair of hands in world cricket. In fact, Rahul Dravid leads the list of Indian players with most catches (333 catches in 504 international matches). Across the world, he remains at fourth position, only behind Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene, Australia's Ricky Ponting and South Africa's Jacques Kallis.

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Harbhajan Singh pays tribute to Rahul Dravid's outstanding catching abilities

Rahul Dravid built his reputation as an excellent slip-catcher for spinners like Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble. He also served as an interim wicketkeeper in the ODI format due to the absence of a regular wicketkeeper-batsman in the side. India's slip cordon at the time had Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman standing at the first and second slip, more so when spinners were bowling. While VVS Laxman was fairly effective at the second slip, more catches often went to Dravid and that too of Anil Kumble's bowling, making it one of the most successful bowler-fielder partnerships in Test cricket. On Tuesday, India off-spinner Harbhajan Singh took to Twitter to post a compilation video of Rahul Dravid's stunning catches during his cricket career. 

In the two minute video, Rahul Dravid is seen grabbing some sensational catches throughout his career at different positions. Even R Ashwin retweeted the video and lauded Rahul Dravid for his brilliant fielding. Cricket analyst Harsha Bhogle also commented on the post. Harsha Bhogle wrote, "The best of those were off your bowling...."

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Rahul Dravid was one of the leading batsmen in the Indian team across all the formats of the game ever since he made his international debut in 1996 at Lord's against England. The Karnataka batsman also went on to lead the Indian team from 2005-2007. His achievements as captain are not credited much as well, something which ex-cricketers like Gautam Gambhir and Irfan Pathan have spoken about recently as well. Under Rahul Dravid's captaincy, India won a Test match and ODI series in Pakistan, a Test match in South Africa and Test series in England and the West Indies respectively.

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In fact, there was a time when Rahul Dravid led India to 17 straight ODI wins while chasing. Besides this, Rahul Dravid captained India in 79 ODIs, out of which India won 42. In 25 Tests as a captain, he helped India win eight. Rahul Dravid was renowned for having an exceptional cricketing brain for making effective captaincy decisions. He represented India in 164 Test matches, scoring 13,288 runs at an average of 52.7. He is also one of the few players to have scored over 10,000 runs for the country in the ODI format (10,889), playing in 344 matches. 

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IMAGE COURTESY: PTI/ ICC-CRICKET.COM