Champions Trophy win: Rohit Sharma credits Dravid and omits Gambhir’s name

Rohit Sharma credited Rahul Dravid and broke his silence on his ODI return.

In his first public appearance since losing ODI captaincy, Rohit Sharma credited Rahul Dravidfor India’s Champions Trophy win and omitted GautamGambhir. Recently, the cricketer was presented with a memento for winning the Champions Trophy 2025 by former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar.

Rohit Sharma credits Rahul Dravid for India’s Champions Trophy win.

Rohit Sharma was honoured with a special memento for leading India to the Champions Trophy haul during the 27th edition of the CEAT Cricket Rating awards in Mumbai. In his first public appearance since being removed as ODI captain, he didn’t mention head coach GautamGambhir while reflecting on the Champions Trophy triumph earlier this year. Instead, he credited the win to the processes established during Dravid’s tenure, praising the team for embracing the ideology of the former captain-coach pair. He said, “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. We’d come so close to 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.” He added, “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 Sharma also broke silence on ODI return.

He further 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,” he added. Rohit, on his ODI return, 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.”

Rohit also said, “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,” he said, talking about the Australia tour. 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.”