By IANS,
London : Hours after the surprise recall to the India One-Day squad, Rahul Dravid Saturday announced his decision to quit the shorter versions of the game at the end of the series in England.
The highly dependable batsman with three hundreds in the last five Tests in the West Indies and in the ongoing series in England, said he was quitting the ODIs and Twenty20s so that he could concentrate on Test cricket.
Dravid, 38, who has not played much one-day cricket in the last four years after being dumped by the national selectors in the wake of a none-too-successful home series against Australia soon after the disastrous 2003 World Cup under his captaincy save for a brief return for the 2009 Champions Trophy in South Africa, admitted the latest recall was totally unexpected.
“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 game at Northampton.
“To be honest, I had not informed the selectors or the board of my intention to focus only on Test cricket because I had not been picked.”
“Now that I am in the one-day side, I am committed as always to give my best in this ODI series against England and thereafter the Tests I play.”
Dravid, like his teammate Sachin Tendulkar, has over 10,000 runs in both the Test and ODI cricket, with 10,765 runs in 339 one-dayers — the seventh highest scorer in that format.