It was a heartbreaking moment for the Indian team when they lost the final of last year’s Men’s ODI World Cup 2023 at home against Australia, despite winning all nine games, including the semi-final in the tournament. The side captain, Rohit Sharma, forced the former head coach, Rahul Dravid, to stay with the team until the T20 World Cup in June 2024.
The campaign for the Blue Brigade in the competition was quite clinical, as they went through all the opposition teams with comfort in both the bowling and batting departments.
From the very first game, when they got the better of the Pat Cummins-led side in Chennai from a struggling position to the semi-final win against New Zealand, where they held their nerve for a long time, it was a very smooth journey till the final.
“Nothing more we could have done more in terms of preparation”- Rahul Dravid
Former Indian head coach, Rahul Dravid, was present at the CEAT Cricket Rating Awards, where he put the weight on an energetic team atmosphere from the ODI World Cup to the T20 tournament, with a change of approach and mindset to end their drought of winning an ICC trophy.
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In June, India, under the captaincy of Rohit, began their 20-over WC journey in the same fashion, as they went unbeaten in the group stage, especially with a victory over Pakistan to qualify for the ‘super 8’ stage of the event. They smashed Afghanistan and Bangladesh all around the park before stunning Australia in their last game of the group.
The 2007 champions used the conditions of the Providence Stadium in Guyana superbly to eliminate England from the tournament, while they showed great resilience and strong mindset, holding their nerve to collect the trophy thanks to the win over South Africa in the final at the Kensington Oval, in Barbados.
Rahul Dravid designed a master plan to work out India’s triumph in the T20 World Cup in the United States of America and the West Indies before signing off as the head coach in style.
“Honestly, I didn’t want to do anything different. I think we ran a fantastic campaign in the one-day World Cup, Rohit, and the team, everyone involved in that one-day World Cup, we ran a superb campaign.” The former Indian batter expressed at the award function.
The veteran admitted that he and his coaching staff didn’t want to break their winning formulas despite the loss to Australia.
“There’s nothing we could have done more in terms of our preparation, the planning, the execution of what we needed to do for ten games in a row to dominate, to win the game we did, play the game we did.” Rahul Dravid shaded light.
The experienced batter’s strategy was to create the same energy and keep the same vibe in the team with an energetic atmosphere, which they had during the 50-over competition.
“I did not want to change anything. If you’d asked me and we had a discussion with our support staff, we’d get together with the coaches and say, what do you think we should do differently?” The 51-year-old narrated in the Programme.
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“The common consensus (in the team) was we need to do exactly, what we did. We need to create the same energy, create the same vibe, the same team atmosphere that we had, and then just hope that on the day, we’ll have a little bit of luck.” Rahul Dravid remembered.
The Indore-born concluded by saying that he was able to enjoy all the moments as a head coach, which he didn’t, playing neither of the limited-overs formats for the national side.