Rahul Dravid Lauds Rohit Sharma's 'Open Mindset', Credits Captain For Team Environment: 'He Led India's White-Ball Evolution'

Rahul Dravid, the former India coach, has highlighted former captain Rohit Sharma's adaptability as an important factor that encouraged his coaching tenure, as the captain's message effortlessly filtered through the squad.

Dravid noted that Rohit's frankness to change was a major optimism, allowing the captain's eye to seamlessly saturate the squad and thereby facilitating his own role.

Dravid's nearly three-year tenure as India's head coach topped in a triumphant T20 World Cup campaign with Rohit Sharma at the helm.

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"When your leader stands up and says, 'I'm the one who will do that at the cost of sometimes my so-called average and the runs that I may score', it's a lot easier to pass that message (to teammates). The fact that he led the whole thing, you know, made your (coach's) job that much easier. He showed the way," said the legendary Dravid at a function organised by the Karnataka State Cricket Association.

Dravid praised Rohit's quick distinction of the need for Indian white-ball cricket to adapt and grow.

"I think the easy part in this thing was working with Rohit, someone who himself really had quite a dispute with him. He was also recognising that the game was changing. I think, you know, the nature of batsmanship in white-ball cricket over the last 10 years or so... everything had started to change. In some ways, there was a feeling that we were slightly behind and we needed to get better at that. We needed to push the envelope a little bit more," Dravid said.

"We needed to take a few more risks. Run rates were going up. All of these things were going up. So, it was then actually just very easy to have that conversation with him. I think, he was completely on board. He was someone who took the responsibility of setting the game forward," he added.

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Lauding Rohit's batting, Dravid said the former captain adjusted brilliantly to the needs of the modern game.

"He (Rohit) already had a phenomenal record. I mean, his performances in the 2019 World Cup were absolutely phenomenal. Five hundreds and, you know, playing at a certain tempo. But that tempo needed to change," Dravid said.