When India won the Champions Trophy earlier this year, Gautam Gambhir was the team’s head coach, but former captain Rohit Sharma credited the team for adopting the philosophy and procedures put in place during Rahul Dravid’s tenure.
Under the leadership of Rohit and Dravid, India won the 2024 T20 World Cup and the 2025 Champions Trophy, recovering from the pain of losing to Australia in the 2023 ODI World Cup final at home.
“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 in Mumbai on Tuesday.
“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 said.
Rohit, who was given a memento for winning the Champions Trophy, shared the team’s philosophy when India won two ICC events under his leadership.
“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 added.
Rohit claimed that he took great pride in his efforts to perform well in all three formats and that he is aware of the expectations for the forthcoming Australian tour, ahead of which he was removed as the ODI captain.
Virat Kohli and Rohit, who has since been replaced by Shubman Gill as captain in both Tests and ODIs, will be in the Indian team for the three-match ODI series in Australia. October 19 is when the series kicks off.
“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,” Rohit said.
“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,” he said, talking about the Australia tour.
“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,” he said.
