India batting stalwart Rohit Sharma, in his first public appearance after being stripped off ODI captaincy, made headlines turn when he omitted current head coach Gautam Gambhir while reflecting on the team's Champions Trophy 2025 win this year. The former captain instead gave credit to former coach Rahul Dravid, stating it was his well-structured thought process that bought the team laurels and trophies.
Under Dravid and Rohit, India managed to bounce back splendidly after the ODI World Cup 2023 heartbreaking loss in the final against Australia, and went onto win the T20 World Cup 2024 tournament, and later under Gambhir won the Champions Trophy 2025 event.
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"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 or two years of work. It was about getting into work after many years," Rohit said.
"We'd come so close to 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 are 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 for everyone," Rohit said.
Notably, Rohit was honored with a special memento for leading India to CT haul during the 27th edition of the CEAT Cricket Rating awards in Mumbai on October 07, further also opened up about the team's ideology in the two ICC events.
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Rohit Sharma on how the team embraced these philosophies in two ICC events
"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.
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Notably, Dravid's coaching tenure ended after the T20 World Cup 2024 win, and Gambhir took over the role in July last year. While under the southpaw, India have won two major trophies so far - Champions Trophy 2025 event and Asia Cup, it was Dravid's ideology that instilled a strong team culture and fearless approach.
