Former Indian cricketer Rahul Dravid receives the Lifetime Achievement Award during the CEAT Cricket Awards in Mumbai.
| Photo Credit: Emmanual Yogini
Former India head coach Rahul Dravid on Wednesday (August 21, 2024) said the support staff strived to carry the energetic “team atmosphere” from the ODI World Cup in 2023 to the T20 showpiece, and the approach helped the team to end a barren run in ICC tournaments.
Dravid masterminded India’s triumph in the T20 World Cup in the Americas before signing off from his role as the head coach in June this year.
“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,” Dravid said at the Ceat Cricket Rating Awards here.
India had suffered a heartbreaking defeat against Australia in the ODI World Cup final at Ahmedabad.
“There’s nothing we could have done more in terms of our preparation, the planning, the execution of what we needed to do for 10 games in a row to dominate, to win the game we did, play the game we did,” said Dravid.
The Bengaluru man said he and the rest of the coaching staff did not want to break the set pattern of a cordial dressing room. “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 common consensus (among 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,” he said.
Though he did not experience playing in a World Cup in either of the limited-over formats in India, he was able to soak in all the elation as the head coach.
“To travel all over this country and to be able to experience that joy and passion of the fans. I’ve never been a part of a World Cup as a player in India, but just the experience as a coach to go from city to city and just walk and see what this game meant to the people of this country was phenomenal. It was incredible,” he said.
Dravid said Australia were the better team during the ODI World Cup final.
“I thought we ran a phenomenal campaign. We came unstuck in the final and Australia played better cricket than us on the day. They were a better team and congratulations (to them). That can happen in sport and that’s what sport is about,” he said.
