Vikram Rathour kicks aside Ravi Shastri, picks Rahul Dravid as 'best coach' he worked with

Batting coach Vikram Rathour's tenure with Team India ended after the T20 World Cup 2024. He along with the other support staff had a big role to play in the team's title win and bringing the title drought to an end.

He was the batting coach of the Indian side since the days of Ravi Shastri being the head coach of the Indian team. He also saw Rahul Dravid take over and do a brilliant job with the team. He shared the successes and failures and the highs and lows with the team.

Vikram Rathour, who is a former India player as well, was able to connect more with Rahul Dravid because the two of them started their national careers almost together. Now having worked together with the Indian team, Rathour said that Dravid is the best head coach he has worked with.

Rahul Dravid Is Open To Suggestions And Feedback: Vikram Rathour

"Rahul is the best coach that I have worked with, who gives you lots of space to work, is open to suggestions and will provide you an honest feedback," Rathour said.

He further recollected his discussion with Rahul Dravid when the duo first took charge of the Indian team. He remembered the backroom work that went into changing the style of batting in T20I cricket. Rohit Sharma proved it in the T20 World Cup as he kept up the aggressive approach that he started showing during the ODI World Cup last year.

"One of the first discussions we had was about changing the batting template in T20 cricket. We agreed that we needed to bring in more intent and aggression in our batting approach," he said.

He further spoke about how Axar Patel solved India's problem of the number 8 batter in T20I cricket.

"That made a massive difference and gave the batters in the top order lot more freedom to bat. Axar was always a good batter and all he needed was an opportunity to express himself fearlessly with an uncomplicated technique," said the outgoing batting coach.

Axar's innings of 47 in the T20 World Cup final typifies the role he can play with the bat in T20I cricket for India. He can be used as a floater like how he was used on the day and it lengthened India's batting lineup. The 73-run stand came at a very crucial time for India and that allowed them to finish with 176 in the final with Kohli batting through.

Speaking about India's approach in T20I cricket, Rathour said that the series against Zimbabwe was the template with which this young team is expected to play in the future.

India won the series 4-1 after losing the first T20I. Washington Sundar was the Player Of The Series for 8 wickets in the series. Shubman Gill finished with 170 runs in the series and also won his first T20I series as captain. The biggest plus from the series was the template with the young Indian batters batted especially Yashasvi Jaiswal and Abhishek Sharma.