'Once Game Starts, It's The Captain's Team': Rahul Dravid Opens Up on Role as Coach

Rahul Dravid has suggested it’s the captain’s role to take the team forward once the game starts as the coach takes the best team and acts as a supporter to the ground. Dravid has been India’s head coach for almost 2 years now and under his captaincy he has given freedom to his captain Rohit Sharma and the players to express themselves on the field.

He worked hard with the team in the build-up to the World Cup to get the best 15 players who can put up a challenge for India to get the trophy back home after 12 years.

Dravid asserted that his role as a coach is to build the team lead-up to the tournament and when the players enter the match it becomes the captain’s responsibility to take them forward.

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“Honestly, once the game starts, it’s the captain’s team. It’s the team that needs to take it forward, they need to execute it, they need to do the job. As a coach I see my work in the lead-up to the games, in the lead-up to this World Cup, trying to get the squad we got eventually. Building up the team, building up the squad and then hoping to allow the players to play and express themselves to have fun,” Dravid said in the press conference on Friday.

Dravid himself led the team in World Cup in 2007 but it turned out to be a forgettable note in his chapter as India were ousted from the group stage after suffering defeats against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The 2007 World Cup wasn’t his finest hour and Dravid said it was in his past life.

“It’s a long time since I was a player. I almost forgot that I was actually a cricket player at one stage to be very honest with you,” the smile was a bit self-deprecating.

“I have moved on from that. I don’t think of myself as a player anymore. Maybe that’s the mind space difference… I’m focussed on helping the group to do the best they can. I mean in the end that’s the job of the support staff, the job of the coach really is to support the vision of the captain and help him execute his vision over the course of the next couple of months and hope we can do that really well,” he added.