Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], October 30 : Former Indian head coach Rahul Dravid hailed the T20 World Cup-winning skipper Rohit Sharma for the highly-aggressive brand of cricket played by the Indian team and the consequent results enjoyed by Men in Blue following a change in approach.
Dravid was speaking on 'Breakfast with Champions' with famous presenter Gaurav Kapur.
Speaking during the show, Dravid said that when he took over as India's head coach in November 2021, his conversations with skipper Rohit Sharma were about playing an aggressive brand of cricket, keeping in mind how the sport was evolving. He lauded the 'Hitman' for pushing the team in the right direction to such an extent that the world is looking at them, feeling that they need to catch up.
"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 we could see that that is 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 have sort of kept going in that direction to the point where I think India's kind of changing what T20 cricket is like. Our batting in T20Is is off the charts. Everyone's looking at India and saying "We got to match this". Now, everyone else in the world has to catch up," said Dravid.
Dravid said that the main credit for the change in approach should go to the players, who go out there in the middle and take those risks.
"It has to be driven by the players. Because they have got to do it. They have got to take the risks. You might be giving them a certain amount of security, but in the end, they are he ones who have got to take those chances, take those risks," he added.
Their collective strike rate has been 148.53 since then, the third-highest in the world next to England (152.83) and Australia (153.60). But their fifty-plus scores (33 including seven tons) are most amongst these top three teams, with Australia having three centuries and 23 fifties and England having two centuries and 20 fifties. Also, they have hit 306 sixes, way higher in comparison to Australia (223) and England (205).
Recently, under the captaincy of Suryakumar Yadav, India won the Asia Cup T20I edition undefeated, beating arch-rivals Pakistan thrice. The highlight of the tournament was batter Abhishek Sharma, who topped the charts with a 'Player of the Tournament' getting 314 runs in six innings at an average of over 44 and a strike rate of above 200, including three fifties, representing the new-age philosophy of India in T20Is.