Suryakumar Yadav reveals Rahul Dravid’s powerful two-slide presentation that ignited Team India’s spirit ahead of T20 WC final
Published - 03 Jul 2024, 03:53 PM
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Rahul Dravid is not only a great cricketer, but he also turned out to be a successful coach of the Indian cricket team. His man-management skills were at their best during his tenure as India's coach as the Men in Blue made it to three ICC tournament finals in a year.
Recently, Dravid showed a two-slide presentation to the team before the T20 World Cup 2024 final match. The presentation turned out to be significant in changing the team's approach before the final game. The details of the presentation were revealed by Suryakumar Yadav.
What was Rahul Dravid's two-slide presentation about?
One slide showed the stats of all the players in the T20 format. It covered all the players from Rohit Sharma to the team's youngest player Yashasvi Jaiswal. Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have played 284 T20Is together while Jaiswal has played 17 T20Is so far.
The other slide showed Rahul Dravid himself, batting coach Vikram Rathour, bowling coach Paras Mhambrey, and fielding coach T Dilip. All these have combined to play just 1 T20I so far, which was played by Dravid.
During a chat with The Indian Express a day after the final, Suryakumar Yadav revealed the content behind Dravid's presentation.
“He showed a graph of the number of T20I games the entire Indian team had played — from Virat bhai to Yashasvi Jaiswal (the most junior member). That number was 800-plus,And then he showed a second slide that had the number of games that the entire coaching staff, including Rahul bhai, had played — that number was 1," Suryakumar said.
Rahul Dravid played his only T20I against England at Manchester, where he scored 31 off 21 balls. Unfortunately, India lost the game by 6 wickets. Dravid announced his retirement after the match.
"Our mind has to be where our feet are" - Suryakumar Yadav on India's motto
According to Suryakumar Yadav, Dravid wanted to show the team how experienced the players are in this format and they know what needs to be done in a particular situation.
"He (Dravid) said to us, ‘You are the best judge here to make the right call at the right time. So leave every other thing to us, go out there and enjoy your game’,” Suryakumar said.
Suryakumar revealed that the aim of the team was simple. They did not want to think too far ahead and wanted to concentrate on the present.
“Before the start, we decided that we won’t talk about what lies ahead in the tournament. Nobody thought about Super 8 and the same was true for the finals in Barbados,” the 33-year-old said.
Meanwhile, India lifted an ICC tournament after a gap of 11 years. This was India's second T20 World Cup title after 17 years. They had won their first title in the inaugural edition in 2007 under the leadership of MS Dhoni.
