Team India’s outgoing head coach Rahul Dravid opened up about his philosophy on coaching and why he believes that coaching is more about creating a safe environment rather than chasing the results. He also spoke about the relationship he has forged with the likes of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, during his two-and-a-half years tenure.
“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 about results. Yes, results are important. I am in a business that runs on results,” Dravid said.
“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.
Dravid believes coaching is more about building connections with people while creating an environment that doesn’t have fear of failure.
“I like to believe that coaching is not just about coaching cricket. This is about building connections with the people and creating the right environment that allows 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 has always been my endeavour to try and create that atmosphere,” he said.
The former India skipper also spoke of his love for continuity rather than chopping and changing every other day as he feels it could spoil the environment.
“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 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 prepare well tactically and technically? Are we supporting the players in the right way? These are the things I wanted to tick before going on to winning. Hopefully, if we do most of these things, winning will take care of itself,” he said.
The talismanic former India batter further spoke of his relationship with the two senior-most cricketers in the set-up — Rohit and Virat, and revealed how he has enjoyed watching the Mumbaikar grow as a player first and now as a leader.
“I have really enjoyed working with Rohit. He is someone I knew as a young boy. Just to see him grow as a person, grow as a leader in Indian cricket. He is someone who is able to contribute to the team in the last ten or twelve years, both as a player and now as a leader. It has been a real tribute to him and the effort he has put in the time he has put in. I really enjoy getting to know him as a person as well,” said Dravid.
On his bond with Virat, Dravid said: “I only had a chance to work with him in a couple of series, in a couple of Test matches when he was the captain. I am getting to know him as well. His desire to improve, his desire to get better is fascinating to watch.”
Covid and its impact on Indian cricket
Dravid says the post-Covid era, the cricketing calendars were packed but it was a blessing in disguise as it allowed him to give opportunity to many young talents and that’s why India now can form two squads, who can play in two different continents.
“One of the things that we really had to manage in my early part of coaching tenure here with India was … we’re just coming out of the Covid. The voice that came out from the Covid was that there were too many restrictions for players. We really had to manage their workload through all three different formats. There were few injuries. We had five or six captains in the first eight or ten months of me being here. It is not something that I thought about but it sort of organically happened,” he said.
“I think the other thing that happened and presently which is happening is that due to Covid we had to play too many series and cram in a lot of cricket. There were times we actually had two teams playing in different parts of the world.
“And it so happened that in the last two-and-half years especially in white-ball cricket we’re able to give opportunities to a lot of young people. I was glad to see how quickly they adapted to international cricket and the kind of performances a lot of these young boys put in as soon as they came. I think that’s a real tribute to the system as well,” he acknowledged.
He also revealed that the hardest part of his job was to pick players from a wide pool of performers.
“Some of them developed and stayed in the team for longer, some of them were there in the team because the seniors were injured. They will get their chances. The hardest thing is that there are so many good young players and to decide which of them will play all the three formats regularly. It is one of the toughest decisions I had to make,” he said.