The year was 2007, when a young Rohit Sharma made his debut for India in the One Day International (ODI) format, under the captaincy of Rahul Dravid in Belfast against Ireland. Young Rohit didn’t get a chance to bat as the senior members of the side Sourav Ganguly and Gautam Gambhir recovered India after a rare failure from Sachin Tendulkar.
Rohit Sharma began to idolize Dravid from a young age, as he aimed to establish himself as a prime batter for the national team. Fast forwarding to the future after 17 years, the Mumbai-born is leading the Indian team under the coaching of the Karnataka veteran during the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024.
And after Dravid’s end of coaching tenure for the Indian team, it could be Gautam Gambhir who could replace Dravid for the coaching position, and co-incidentally it was Gambhir too who was adjusted the ‘Player of the match’ in Belfast for his unbeaten knock of 80-runs in 2007.
‘I tried convincing him to stay’ – Rohit Sharma
Rahul Dravid has also confirmed that he won’t re-apply for the high-profile job in Indian cricket, and aims to finish on a high with helping Rohit and co. to their second title in the history of the tournament.
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Coming into his first press conference ahead of India’s opening fixture against Ireland, Rohit addressed the media on the emotional bond between him and ‘The Wall’, and how the latter has helped and taught India winning from difficult situations.
He was my first international captain when I made my debut in Ireland. Then I’ve seen him play while I was just coming into the team (for) Test matches when he was captain. And such a big role model for all of us. Growing up, we watched him play and we know what he has achieved, personally as a player and also what he’s done for the team over the years. Battling out the team from difficult situations and that is what he’s known for,” India captain Rohit Sharma expressed in the press-conference before their first game of the competition.
Under Dravid’s coaching tenure, India failed win a major ICC trophy, which has been the hunt for them for the last decade, since winning the Champions Trophy in 2013 against England. However, the national team recorded two successful Test series victory over Australia and England at home.
Rohit Sharma got emotional while talking about how he tried to convince Dravid to stay in the coaching role.
‘I tried convincing him to stay, but obviously there are a lot of things that he needs to look after as well. But yeah, I personally enjoyed my time with him. I’m sure the rest of the guys will say the same. It’s been great working with him. And I’m not going to say anything actually. I’m not going to say anything,” Mumbai batter remarked.
Even though India didn’t win any ICC trophy, they made their way to the semifinal of the 2022 T20 World Cup before losing it to England by 10-wickets, before being hammered by Australia in the final of the home ODI World Cup 2023.
When it comes to the shortest format of the game, India won 50 encounters, and lost 17 with Dravid as the head-coach, as they also made their way to the second back-to-back season of the World Test Championship (WTC) final in 2021-’23.
‘He’s shown a lot of great determination throughout his career and that is something that when he came here as a coach, I wanted to learn from him. It’s been very fruitful. Other than the big silver (trophy), we won all the major tournaments and series,” Rohit Sharma concluded on what learnings he will take from this one and half year period.
‘I’ve enjoyed every bit of it, working with him, deciding what direction the team needs to head. And for him to buy into that thought, obviously makes a huge difference. And he was the first one who came and said, ‘this is what we need to do as a team’. No matter what happens, but at least we’ll give it a good shot at it when he arrived,” India captain concluded.