Former Indian skipper Rahul Dravid has heaped praise on current captain, Rohit Sharma, mentioning that it’s an absolute privilege to work with him. Indeed, the 37-year-old Mumbai batsman has to his name a staggering number of big scores, as well as a record-shattering career that has also witnessed three double hundreds, making him a modern great of white-ball cricket. His captaincy was excellent and culminated in India’s win in the 2022 T20 World Cup.
Rahul Dravid, who served as coach for two and a half years for the Indian team, believes Rohit’s captaincy has had a huge role in creating harmony within this team. “Rohit is a great leader. He’s very charismatic and people are just drawn towards him,” he said in an interview. “It’s just a natural assumption—big players have big egos and can be difficult to manage. But probably just the opposite is true.”
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The former batting maestro highlighted the humility in India’s star players like Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, and Ravichandran Ashwin. “All of them are very keen on their game and, of course, constantly on the lookout for ways and means to keep improving,” he said.
Someone like Ashwin, even at this stage in his career, is still feeling hungry to learn and adapt. That’s what actually makes real champions different from the others. Rahul Dravid tips his hat at providing a perfect setting for the players and the senior players that the team looks up to.
“Was A Privilege To Work With Rohit Sharma”: Ex-Coach Rahul Dravid’s Big Praise For India Skipper#RahulDravid #RohitSharma https://t.co/eLgEbW887X
— CricketNDTV (@CricketNDTV) August 13, 2024
“It has been an absolute pleasure to work with this group of cricketers”, he adds. Though there were juggling with workload and expectations at times, finally, it was an extremely rewarding experience overall. A lot of credit for inculcating that all winning culture definitely will go to Rohit and the senior cricketers.
India made good progress under the coaching tenure of Dravid, reaching the finals of the 2021 T20 World Cup and the 2023 World Test Championship. The team fell at the final hurdle on both occasions, but the progress they were making was quite palpable. The icing on the cake was the 2022 T20 World Cup victory.
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Dravid’s words bleed value about the insight into Indian team dynamics in the world of high-performance cricket. Words of accolade heaped by him, not sparing Rohit Sharma and some other senior players, once again underline the need for effective leadership and positive team culture as the ingredients to produce success.
