Rohit Sharma skips Gautam Gambhir, instead credits Rahul Dravid behind Champions Trophy success

Rohit Sharma skips Gautam Gambhir, instead credits Rahul Dravid behind Champions Trophy success

Rohit Sharma received a memento for leading India to ICC Champions Trophy 2025 triumph at the CEAT Cricket Rating awards in Mumbai on Tuesday evening. Under Rohit's leadership, India not only broke the long standing ICC trophy drought but won two titles in the span of a year. It all began with the T20 World Cup last year, and he followed it by guiding the team to a Champions Trophy triumph early this year.

While the T20 title came when Rahul Dravid was the head coach, the second title came with Gautam Gambhir being at the helm of things. Despite this, Rohit completely omitted Gambhir and instead credited Dravid for the success.

In fact both the ICC titles, which India won under captain Rohit was right after the ODI World Cup heartbreak, where India lost to Australia in the final.

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Sharing details around the team's philosophy during the two ICC events which India won under his captaincy, Rohit said: "All the guys who took part in that competition (Champions Trophy) got into that thought process of how to win games and how to challenge ourselves and not be complacent and not to take anything for granted.

"Those were the qualities that we tried to bring in and we thought it was a good method of just going and doing that repeatedly. Everyone enjoyed that process. Once we got over the line when we won the first game, we completely put that game aside and then started focusing on the next one.

"That was really good from the team and that is something that helped me and Rahul bhai when we were planning for the (2024) T20 World Cup, and then on to the Champions Trophy. We just carried it well. In 2023, although we didn't cross the line in the finals, we set out to do something as a team and everyone did that."

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The 38-year-old had announced his retirement from T20Is last year after the World Cup triumph, and right before India's tour of England he quit from Test cricket too. However, he remained active in the ODI format but last week on Saturday, his ODI captaincy was passed on to rising star Shubman Gill, who had also succeeded him in Test a few months ago.

Rohit will be taking part in the upcoming ODIs against Australia, starting from October 19. Reflecting his thoughts on the next assignment, the former skipper said: "I personally took a lot of pride in trying to excel in all three forms whenever I had the opportunity and that is something that a few others also did and that eventually rubbed off on the team as well.

"I love playing against them. I love going to Australia. It's a very challenging country to play cricket. People there love the game as well. But certainly, Australia is a different challenge every time they have played against us. Having been there now several times, I do understand what to expect. Hopefully we can go there and do what the Indian team is supposed to do and get the result in our favour."