Rahul Dravid’s tenure as head coach of the Indian men’s cricket team concluded on a high, capping his journey with the victory which millions of Indian cricket fans were eyeing. Under his leadership, India finally broke their 11-year ICC trophy drought by winning the T20 World Cup championship. The victory, which came on 29 June 2024 at the historic Kensington Oval in Barbados, was a fitting farewell to Dravid, a cricket legend in his own right.
Rohit Sharma’s team won a nail-biter against South Africa by seven runs as they ticked off a winning victory that brought in joy, with a pointer to the end of an era of Indian cricket under Dravid’s tutelage. Dravid’s head coaching career started at a tumultuous time in Indian cricket history.
Following the quite miserable exit in the group stages of the 2021 T20 World Cup, Dravid was put there to steady the ship and instill that winning mentality within the team. In less than two and a half years, he filled up all Indian cricketing action involving bilateral series and gained some notable successes.
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His tenure, however, was not free from some shocks and setbacks that warned of the uncertainties of cricket. Under his tenure, India suffered some agonizing lows that are too difficult to forget but formed part of the journey. Added to this list were the 10-wicket loss to England in the semifinals of the 2022 T20 World Cup and an abject 209-run defeat at Australia’s hands in the 2023 World Test Championship final.
Despite these big losses, while reflecting back on his tenure, Rahul Dravid did not focus on these big losses. He cited the series loss against South Africa in 2021–22 as his lowest point as a coach. Having taken the lead by winning the first Test in Centurion, India was in a good position to win their first-ever Test series against South Africa. But India messed it up in the remaining two Tests, despite such a good start. As Dravid said, it was all the more disappointing because it was such a huge opportunity to be a landmark win for Indian cricket.
Rahul Dravid explained, “If you ask me what the lowest point is, I would say the South Africa Test series early on in my career. We won the first Test match in South Africa in Centurion, and then we were playing in the second and third Test matches. We have never won a series in South Africa, as you know. It was really a big opportunity for us to win that series. Some of our senior players were not there. Rohit Sharma was injured, and we didn’t have some senior players in that series.”
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He added, “But we were very close, and in both the Test matches—the second and the third Test matches—in the third inning, we had a big opportunity. We could have set a decent score and won the game, but South Africa played well. They chased back in in the fourth inning, so I would say that that was probably my lowest point in my coaching of not being able to win that series in spite of being ahead.”
Reflecting on this series, Rahul Dravid said that some valuable lessons were drawn from the experience. He said that, even in the face of defeat, one must keep things in perspective since losing is a part of the game and sometimes it can even happen to the best-prepared teams. He spoke of the need to stay balanced in victory and defeat, and of the need to improve continuously, grasping the fact that a coach and a team’s journey is one of continuous learning and adaptation.
