"Rohit deserves a lot of credit for it" - Rahul Dravid's massive statement on T20 World Cup triumph amid AUS vs IND 2025 series

Former India cricketer and head coach Rahul Dravid credited Rohit Sharma for a shift in approach in T20Is during the duo's time together at the helm of Indian men's cricket. The comments come as Men in Blue play a five-match T20I series Down Under.

The former coach recalled his discussion with Rohit Sharma about wanting to play an aggressive brand of cricket. Notably, India's openers were seen getting the team off to blazing starts during the recently concluded Asia Cup 2025. However, the seeds for the approach were sown much earlier.

"From the time I came in, a lot of the discussion with Rohit around was around that we wanted to play a more aggressive brand of cricket. And we tried we started right from the beginning because that we could see that that's the way the game was evolving and Rohit deserves a lot of credit for it. To move the team in a particular direction. Play the game in a lot more aggressive and a lot more positive manner and I'm glad that we've sort of kept going in that direction to the point where I think India's kind of changing what T20 cricket is like," he said on 'Breakfast with Champions'.

Rahul Dravid reckoned that other teams would look at India's T20 game and feel the need to catch up with them a few years down the line. Rohit pioneered the change in approach with his aggressive and fearless batting at the top, which is now being followed by the likes of Abhishek Sharma and others.

His approach played a massive role in India winning the 2024 T20 World Cup. It was a fairy tale ending for Dravid, whose tenure as coach also came to a fitting end with the triumph.

Rahul Dravid acknowledged the fact that playing an aggressive brand of cricket also came with a higher risk factor. Therefore, he believed that giving players confidence and security was important as a coach. He added that managing issues around the same, such as selection calls and the team environment, were also crucial factors.

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Communicating to players who are not picked is challenging, believes Rahul Dravid

Reflecting further on the selection issues, Rahul Dravid reckoned that communicating with players who were dropped was challenging. He expressed that explaining the combination or reasoning out the calls was tough.

"I think the challenge is communicating to people when they're not picked in teams or why you have to drop certain people or why it's a combination you're playing. Not all of them will agree with you at times. And that's and that's part of the job, right? Because you sometimes don't even have good enough explanations to people as to why they are not picked and you know, because they might be good enough. And it's just that somebody else happens to be equally good enough," he said.

India have made some hard selection calls across formats in recent times. Keeping the batting depth and certain combinations in mind, the likes of Kuldeep Yadav and Arshdeep Singh, among others, have often been benched.