Rohit Sharma Credits Ex-Indian Coach Rahul Dravid For Champions Trophy 2025 Success

Since taking over as India's captain, Rohit Sharma has completely transformed the landscape of Indian cricket in the white-ball formats. Across three global white-ball tournaments – ODI World Cup (2023), T20 World Cup (2024) and Champions Trophy (2025) – Rohit led the team with such power, as India just lost one clash. 

In his stint as India’s ODI captain, Rohit led the Indian team to 42 wins across 56 clashes, with just 12 defeats, having an impressive win record of 75%. The 38-year-old recollected his memories with the Indian side during that crazy run, stating that it was a fruit of all the hard work that they had put in the preceding years.

“Look, I love that team, loved playing with them, and it’s a journey that we were all into, for many years. It’s not about one year or two years of work. It was about getting into work from many years,” Rohit said during the CEAT Cricket Rating awards.

“We’d come so close of winning that trophy many times but we couldn’t just get over the line. That is where everyone decided that we need to do something different and there’s two (ways) to look at it.” 

“There’s always a thought of doing that and then actually going and doing that. It cannot be done by one or two players. We needed everyone to buy into that thought, which was good from everyone,” Rohit said.

The former Indian skipper also reckoned that they were able to win the Champions Trophy because they weren’t too complacent and wanted to win every single game. 

“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,” he said.

“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,” he added.

Rohit’s reign as India’s white-ball captain is only second-best to MS Dhoni, who, during his time, had captured all the ICC tournaments. For Rohit’s India, the elusive ODI World Cup remained a dream, as Australia bested them in the final.