Happy birthday Rahul Dravid: 3 biggest controversies in The Wall's career

Rahul Dravid is one of the greatest cricketers in India's rich cricketing history. He remains the only Indian batter, apart from Sachin Tendulkar, to have scored more than 10,000 runs in both ODI and Test cricket. He is also the current head coach of the country's men's national cricket team.

As he turns 50 today, it's a good opportunity to look back at this legendary former cricketer's career. He has definitely left a rich legacy behind for the upcoming generation of cricketers. However, his career had a few controversies that could not go unnoticed by fans and critics alike.

Let's take a look at three such controversies in Rahul Dravid's career.

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#1 Greg Chappell and Sourav Ganguly saga

The dispute between the then-India captain Sourav Ganguly and coach Greg Chappell is well documented. Ganguly was unceremoniously dropped from the team after Rahul Dravid was appointed as the captain.

While relations between Dravid and Ganguly have remained good over the years, the two clearly had a difference of opinion over Chappell.

In an interview with India Today network, Ganguly let his feelings over Dravid and Chappell be known.

“Because of Greg Chappell, the dressing room was divided. Rahul Dravid is the type of person who wants everything to go smoothly. He knew that things were going wrong, but he had no courage to revolt and tell him (Chappell) that he was doing wrong."

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#2 Ball tampering allegations (2004)

The star batter was fined for ball-tampering during India's match against Zimbabwe at the Gabba in 2004. He was caught applying saliva while sucking on a cough lozenge on the shiny side of the ball by the TV cameras. Match referee Clive Lloyd fined Dravid 50 percent of the match fee. He was subsequently charged under clause 2.10 of the ICC's code of conduct.

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#3 Multan declaration (2004)

Every time a captain declares before a player is about to achieve a personal milestone, Indian cricket fans remember this particular game. India were playing their arch-rivals Pakistan in a Test match in 2004. Virender Sehwag brought up his first triple hundred in Test cricket - 309 off just 375 balls.

Sachin Tendulkar was in exceptional touch too. In his own words, he paced his innings so that he could score a double hundred and the team could get to bowl 15 overs against Pakistan on the same day. However, Rahul Dravid, who was the stand-in captain in this match, declared after India reached 675/5 in their first innings, leaving Tendulkar stranded on 194*.

The Little Master was upset with the decision.

“I assured Rahul that the incident would have no bearing on my involvement on the field, but off the field, I would prefer to be left alone for a while to come to terms with what had happened,” Tendulkar writes in his autobiography.