Rahul Dravid, who steps down as head coach of the India men's team, revealed his attachment to the bonds that he shares with the senior players, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma respectively. This was after Dravid declared ahead of India's T20 World Cup campaign that this would be his last tournament as head coach.
He signed off on a high at the end of his two-and-a-half-year coaching tenure after the former Indian captain oversaw the victory of India in the T20 World Cup, beating South Africa by seven runs in another hugely exciting Kensington Oval contest on June 29.
As much as Dravid reflected back, he spoke highly of the time that was spent working with Virat Kohli. "Someone like Virat (Kohli). Just a couple of series with him as a captain and just a couple of Test matches, but I was getting to know him as well, just to see how he goes about his business and the professionalism that he continues to display, his desire to improve and get better. It's been fascinating for me to watch."
He also singled out his admiration for Rohit Sharma, whom he had known since childhood days: "I have really enjoyed working with Rohit (Sharma). He is someone whom I knew as a young boy and I just to grow him as a person and grow as a leader in Indian cricket and what someone like him wanted to contribute to the team over the last 10-12 years, both as a player and now as a leader. It's been a real tribute to him and the effort and time that he has put in."
Dravid said as much in a video on bcci.tv, in which he spoke about the bonds forged with Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, and the camaraderie in the team that he would miss.
On his philosophy of coaching, Dravid says while results are a consideration, he really lays more emphasis on creating an environment where any player can succeed: "I have really enjoyed seeing his commitment and care to the team just to try and get the environment right where everyone feels safe, enjoys themselves while it's a very competitive and professional environment. It's something I'll miss, as well as some of his connections and with Rohit."
He explained his philosophy further: “As a coach at the end of the day my job is to help the captain deliver his vision, his philosophy of how he wants the team to play. I don’t really like talking more about results. Yes results are important. I am in a business that runs on results.”
“I think results are the factor of many things. When you are constantly rotating players and the kind of number of players you will have to play in spite of that the kind of results we got in these past months have given me more satisfaction,” he added.
His coaching tenure, marked with elements of mentorship and strategic planning, underlined Dravid's sincerity toward overall player development for success.
“I feel that I am a part of the team whose responsibility is to create the right professional, safe, secure environment that really doesn’t have fear of failure as such but its challenging enough to push people. That is always been my endeavour to try and create that atmosphere.”
“I am someone who likes continuity in life. I don’t like chopping and changing too many things because I think that creates a lot of instability and doesn’t create a very good environment. The vision of course is to win a cricket game. You try to win as much as you can. But I always look back to the fact that what is it that leads to the winning?”
“How do you win more games? What is the process required to win more games? For me the vision was to get that process right. Ticking all those boxes. How do you challenge the players enough? How do you practice enough, how do you well prepare tactically and technically?”
“Are we supporting the players in the right way? These are the things I wanted to tick before going on to the winning. Hopefully, if we would do most of these things, winning will take care of itself,” he concluded.
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