Former India captain Rohit Sharma credited Rahul Dravid’s tenure for India’s Champions Trophy win earlier this year. With Rohit and Dravid at the helm, India won two ICC events – the 2024 T20 World Cup and the 2025 Champions Trophy.

“Look, I love that team, loved playing with them and it’s a journey that we were all into, for many years. It’s not about one year or two years of work. It was about getting into work from many years,” Rohit said during the CEAT Cricket Rating awards.

“We’d come so close of winning that trophy many times but we couldn’t just get over the line. That is where everyone decided that we need to do something different and there’s two (ways) to look at it. There’s always a thought of doing that and then actually going and doing that. It cannot be done by one or two players. We needed everyone to buy into that thought, which was good from everyone,” Rohit Sharma again shared.

READ HERE: Shubman Gill Takes Sly Dig At His Critics After India Win At Edgbaston

Rohit Sharma, who received a memento for winning the Champions Trophy, shared the details around the team’s philosophy during the two ICC events, which India won under his leadership as well.

“All the guys who took part in that competition (Champions Trophy) got into that thought process of how to win games and how to challenge ourselves and not be complacent and not to take anything for granted,” he said.

“Those were the qualities that we tried to bring in and we thought it was a good method of just going and doing that repeatedly. Everyone enjoyed that process. Once we got over the line when we won the first game, we completely put that game aside and then started focusing on the next one. That was really good from the team and that is something that helped me and Rahul bhai when we were planning for the (2024) T20 World Cup, and then on to the Champions Trophy. We just carried it well. In 2023, although we didn’t cross the line in the finals, we set out to do something as a team and everyone did that,” he further added.

However, former India opener Gautam Gambhir, and not Rahul Dravid, was the team’s head coach when India won the Champions Trophy. Rohit also said that he took a lot of pride in trying to excel in all three formats as well.

“I personally took a lot of pride in trying to excel in all three forms whenever I had the opportunity and that is something that a few others also did and that eventually rubbed off on the team as well. I love playing against them. I love going to Australia. It’s a very challenging country to play cricket. People there love the game as well. But certainly, Australia is a different challenge every time they have played against us. Having been there now several times, I do understand what to expect. Hopefully we can go there and do what the Indian team is supposed to do and get the result in our favour,” Rohit Sharma concluded.