Rahul Dravid concluded his role as the head coach of the Indian men’s cricket team on a successful note. In his final assignment, India ended an 11-year drought for an ICC trophy by winning the T20 World Cup. In the championship match held at Kensington Oval in Barbados on June 29, 2024, the team led by Rohit Sharma beat South Africa by seven runs, providing Dravid with a memorable send-off.
Dravid started his tenure as head coach after India’s disappointing exit from the group stage of the 2021 T20 World Cup in November 2021. During his two-and-a-half-year period, he secured victories in several bilateral series, although there were also some challenges along the way.
These hard losses are difficult to forget. In a recent talk, when Dravid was asked about the toughest time as the coach of Team India, he didn’t mention the big losses. Instead, he chose the series loss against South Africa in 2021-22.
He believes India had a really good chance to win their first Test series in South Africa then. But even though they were ahead 1-0, India lost the next two games.
“If you want to know my lowest point, I’d say it was during the Test series in South Africa early in my career. We won the first Test match in Centurion, and then we played the second and third Test matches. As you know, we’ve never won a series in South Africa before. It was a great chance for us to win that series. Some of our experienced players were missing. Rohit Sharma was injured, and we didn’t have some of our senior players in that series. But we were really close, and in both the second and third Test matches, we had a big chance in the third inning. We could have set a good score and won the game, but South Africa played really well. They caught up in the fourth inning. So I would say that not being able to win that series even though we were ahead was probably my lowest point in coaching.”
“However, we gained a lot of valuable insights from that situation. We learned a lot from those experiences and about our team. We discovered what we needed to improve on. As coaches, it’s crucial to understand that there will be highs and lows. The key is to keep a balanced perspective and accept that you won’t always win. Other teams are also competing, and you’re up against some top-tier opponents. You have the right to prepare thoroughly, follow your strategies, do the right preparation, choose the right team, and train well. But even with all that, sometimes you lose. You need to learn how to maintain balance, keep encouraging your team, and boost their morale,” he explained.
