Rahul Dravid announces retirement from ODIs, T20s

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Chennai, August 06, 2011: On the day that he was handed a shock recall to the one-day side, Rahul Dravid has said that the England series will be his final limited-overs assignment. He said he wanted to retire from the shorter forms and concentrate on Test cricket.

Dravid, 38, is the seventh highest run-getter in ODIs, with 10,765 runs in 339 matches and was the top run-scorer in the 1999 World Cup. He hasn’t been a regular with the Indian one-day side since late 2007 - a couple of months after he reached his career-high ICC ranking of No. 5 - though he made a brief comeback during the 2009 Champions Trophy in South Africa. He admitted he hadn’t expected a recall for the upcoming England series.

"Since I had not been picked for one-day cricket for the last two years, I was obviously a little surprised," he said after the warm-up match against Northamptonshire. "To be honest, because I had not been picked, I had not informed the selectors or the board of my desire to solely focus on Test cricket.

"At the end of this one-day series, I would like to announce my retirement from one-day and Twenty20 cricket and concentrate only on Test cricket. I am committed, as always to give my best to India in this one-day series and obviously the Test series that follows.

"In the short term I am committed because now I have been picked for the series, but in the long term I think it is best for me and Indian cricket that I focus on Test cricket."

Dravid recently became the second highest run-getter in Tests, and has had a resurgence in form over the past couple of months, scoring three centuries in five Tests to end a relatively lean run in the last few years.

Courtesy: NDTV