Dravid is widely regarded as one of India's greatest cricketers.
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Dravid took over the captaincy from Sourav Ganguly in late 2005, after the latter had been dropped from the team following the fallout with then-Indian coach Greg Chappell.
He led India in a total of 25 Tests and 79 ODIs, winning 8 and 42 respectively. During his stint as captain, there was also a change in mindset as the Indian cricket team broke the record for most consecutive victories (17) batting second in the 50-over format.
“I made my one-day debut under Sourav Ganguly and my Test debut under Rahul Dravid. It is so unfortunate that we do not give Rahul Dravid enough credit for his captaincy. We only talk about Sourav Ganguly, MS Dhoni, now we talk about Virat Kohli, but Rahul Dravid has been a fabulous captain for India as well. Even his records, he’s probably the most under-rated cricketer and probably the most under-rated leader as well. We won in England, West Indies, we won some 14 or 15 games on the trot,” Gambhir said while speaking on Star Sports’ show Cricket Connected.
Dravid was the perfect example of a team man as he batted at numerous positions in both formats and also donned the keeping gloves in ODI cricket. After retiring from the game, the legendary batsman served the India 'A' and India Under-19 sides as a coach.
Gambhir, who played a lot alongside Dravid, said the latter is just the kind of role model that you would want kids to emulate.
“If you look at Rahul Dravid as a cricketer, I think if you asked him to open the batting in Test cricket, he did, he batted at No. 3, he kept wickets for India, he batted as a finisher, he did everything what Indian cricket asked him or what a captain asked him to do and that is the kind of role models you want."
"For me, I think he has had a bigger impact. Sourav Ganguly has always had a bigger impact in white-ball cricket because of his flamboyance, but Rahul Dravid overall, in Indian cricket, had a much bigger impact that probably anyone. You can actually match his impact to someone like Sachin Tendulkar as well because he played under the shadows of Sachin Tendulkar all his life, but yes, impact wise, probably the same.”