Former India captain and coach Rahul Dravid claimed that Rohit Sharma’s capacity to remain composed, show genuine concern for his squad, and express his views clearly stood out to him, as the two became one of the most successful captain-coach combinations in the history of the national team.
Under the leadership of Rohit and Dravid, the Indian team had an incredible run, especially in white-ball cricket, reaching the 2023 ODI World Cup final and winning the 2024 T20 World Cup.
Dravid stated that he was aware that Rohit needed a comfortable environment in order to operate.
“For me, it was just working with him on challenging him at times on certain things, but also just working with him to ensure that you know, he was able to be comfortable in that space,” Dravid former Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on his YouTube channel.
“Because I knew once he was comfortable in that space, then he was going to perform and he was going to get everyone else to perform.”
Dravid claimed that their ability to communicate with Rohit Sharma on topics other than cricket benefited them both.
Dravid said, “I just enjoyed sort of getting to know him as a person and chatting with him. There were a lot of times (during) our conversations, we were comfortable enough to be able to sit and have conversations with each other without having to talk only cricket.”
“It felt easy spending time in the evening with him to have a meal, you know, I wasn’t forced or it wasn’t like, ‘oh, we have to convince it and have a meeting’,” he added.
“Having seen him as an U-19 kid and given him his first gap as a cricketer to see how he grew as a person and as a leader was actually really nice,” Dravid added.
