Former India captain and coach Rahul Dravid has credited Rohit Sharma with leading the white-ball evolution in the country from the front and picked India as the favourite for the ICC Men's T20 World Cup, starting on February 7. “India are playing T20 cricket at a different level than most teams.
They have had an 80% success rate in the last few years, which is amazing in a format that has so many ups and downs. They clearly start as favourites, and they will make it to the semi-finals, but as I have learned to my bitter disappointment, it’s about the better team on the day.
Anybody can play a good knock and upset you,” the legendary batter opined. Dravid credited Rohit Sharma for steering India into a new avatar in the limited-overs format. “There was a feeling that we were slightly behind in white-ball cricket and needed to push the envelope a little more.
Run rates were going up, risk-taking was increasing, and we needed to adapt to that reality,” said Dravid at an event in Bengaluru on Tuesday. Dravid addressed India’s white-ball growth and leadership evolution at a special event celebrating ‘The Rise of the Hitman’ by author R. Kaushik, offering insights into Rohit Sharma’s impact and India’s readiness for the upcoming ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.
He added, “What was brilliant was that Rohit took the lead immediately. He took responsibility for setting the tempo himself, rather than asking others to do it. When your leader stands up and says, ‘I will do this, even if it comes at the cost of my average or my personal numbers,’ it becomes much easier to pass that message through the team.”
Speaking on Rohit’s transition into leadership of the Indian team, Dravid said, “I thought Rohit managed the transition into leadership really well. The team never felt that he had changed, and that is a rare and important quality in a leader.” Dravid’s former teammate and KSCA President, Venkatesh Prasad, joined virtually to reflect on his association with Rohit across different phases of his career.
He hailed Rohit Sharma’s achievements and longevity at the highest level. “Being conferred with the Padma Shri is a huge achievement, and Rohit Sharma fully deserves it. Having played for so many years across formats and created an extraordinary body of work, he stands out as the only Indian player to have won two T20 World Cups,” Prasad said.
Reflecting on his days coaching Sharma in the Under-19 set-up, Prasad added, “I have been seeing Rohit from the time he was 16 or 17 when he played for the India Under-19 team. Even then, you could see the sheer talent and potential.
What struck me from the very beginning was how much time he had to play his shots. You can easily compare Rohit Sharma with any of the greats that India has produced. That is the quality of batter we are talking about.”