Rahul Dravid and Suresh Raina
Former Indian captain Rahul Dravid on Tuesday paid a heartfelt tribute to his ex-teammate Suresh Raina who recently announced his international retirement last week.
Dravid, under whom Raina had made his international debut and by whom he was handed his debut cap, talked about all-rounder, his impact in Indian cricket in the white-ball format while opining that his numbers would have been better had he batted higher up in the batting order as he does for Chennai Super Kings.
"Raina was one of those really exciting talents coming through the Indian system around the middle of 2004 and 2005, playing U-19 cricket and doing exceptionally well. And you could see even at that time that Suresh was going to be a very important player for Team India. And that is how it has played out in the last decade and a half. And a lot of the success that India have had in white-ball cricket, a lot of the great moments, Suresh has been a really a big part of them. I think his contribution to Indian cricket especially in the white-ball game, has been great. He is a World Cup winner, a Champions Trophy winner. And the fact that he contributed so much on the field, his energy, the enthusiasm he brought, the way he raised the standard of fielding. He always did the difficult things for India, batting lower down the order. His numbers could have actually been a lot better had he batted higher up the order which has been seen in the success he has had with CSK where he bats at No.3. He is one of the phenomenal players in IPL history. He also fielded at difficult positions and bowled handy overs. He always brought a lot to the team. He was a terrific team man and a skillful batter. I guess, he couldn't replicate the success of his debut hundred and couldn't build on that in his Test career. But his contributions for Indian in one-day cricket was fantastic," said Dravid through a video that was shared by BCCI on their official Twitter page.
BCCI captioned the video as: "As @ImRaina walks into the sunset, here's a heartfelt tribute from the legendary Rahul Dravid, who presented the left-hander with his most prized possessions - the ODI and Test cap."
Raina played 18 Tests, 226 ODIs and 78 T20I matches for India scoring 768 runs 5615 runs and 1605 runs respectively.
