Ahmedabad: India captain Suryakumar Yadav revealed the feeling of being World champions was yet to sink in and the journey of the last couple of years was unbelievable after the hosts crushed New Zealand by 96 runs to clinch the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup title.
Suryakumar was understandably ecstatic and expressed his happiness at winning the Cup in the post-match presser.
“Firstly, happy Women's Day to you and obviously very happy. But it'll take a little bit of time to sink in. We've just come out of a game and it was a good game obviously, playing at home. Definitely when we wake up tomorrow and go back home or I don't know where we are. But yeah, very excited.”
“Whatever happened in the last two years post 2024 World Cup and till today. I think it was unbelievable and the feeling, I think, currently I don't know how do I share it but it has been a wonderful day,” he added.
India’s head coach Gautam Gambhir played down his role despite becoming the first Indian coach to win two ICC trophies.
“Look, the first thing is that the players have chosen me. And I have been saying for a long time that you are as good a coach and captain as your players are. So I think credit needs to go to the players. The way, the professionalism and most importantly, the bravery with which we played.”
Gambhir further added that he was very clear about not keeping a distinction between the bilateral series and ICC tournaments when it came to intensity and effort from the players.
“In bilateral, like you said, we play differently. In ICC, we play differently. I think we wanted to change that. And I am sure, I think everyone has seen that. If you look at the semi-final and all-final, we made more than 250 runs. So that just shows what kind of quality and what kind of bravery and courage we had while playing this tournament.
When asked about the question of accountability and social media criticism he got, Gambhir shot back saying his primary accountability was only towards the dressing room and squad.
“Look, the first thing is that my accountability is not towards any social media. My accountability is mostly towards those 30 people who are sitting in the dressing room. And not towards anyone else. Because if I can work honestly with them, I can do it. If we can work honestly. Apart from that, my accountability was never before anyone else. Neither today nor in the future. Even if I win two ICC trophies as a coach, it really doesn't matter.”
The India coach elaborated the core of his coaching philosophy was to eliminate the fear of losing in the team and foster a fearless, high risk-high reward cuture.
“Look, the most important process was in the ST20 format. Because we don't want to be afraid of losing. Because if you are afraid of losing, you never win. Because I always believe that high risk, high reward is a very important thing in this format. Because many times it happens that you play in a conservative way. I would have been happier if we would have been out at 110-120. But our target was always to make 250 runs.
But we didn't want to play 160-170 cricket. I think for too long we played 160-170 cricket. But for the last two years, it was the captain's philosophy. It was the captain's ideology, obviously. If the captain and the coach are not on the same page, it can never be possible. The captain himself wanted to play high risk, high reward,” Gambhir explained.
Skipper Suryakumar stated that Gambhir and him would always align when it comes to team selection and there was never any difference or argument.
“So many times it has happened that when we have talked about the team, whether it is playing 11 or playing 15, out of that 14 players have stayed the same. So if there is such a high success rate, then we don't need to discuss so much. Because we were always on the same page.
Since we started working together in the Sri Lanka series, from the time we went to Sri Lanka till today. I don't remember a time when we had an argument over a player, whether to feed him or not, what do you think? Because both of us were always interested in how the team can win. If we put a player somewhere, how much benefit can the team get from it.”
