In his first public talk after losing the ODI captaincy, Rohit Sharma spoke about India’s Champions Trophy win in 2025. However, he did not mention head coach Gautam Gambhir. Instead, he praised the processes set under Rahul Dravid’s tenure.

Rohit Sharma was honoured at the CEAT Cricket Rating Awards in Mumbai. He received the award from Indian cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar.

Presenter Mayanti Langer spoke with the former Team India captain and discussed the “sea change” in Indian cricket under Rohit Sharma’s captaincy. She said that every single player in that Champions Trophy 2025 squad was a “match-winner”.

“Look. I love that team. I loved playing with them, and it’s a journey that we were all into for many years. It’s not about one or two years of work. It was about getting into work for many years,” Rohit said while talking about his team.

“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 needed to do something different,” he added.

“All the guys who took part in that competition 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,” he said about the Champions Trophy 2025 squad.

“Those were the qualities that we tried to bring in. We followed a simple 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,” came from India’s T20 World Cup-winning captain.

“That was really good from the team, and that is something that helped me and Rahul (Dravid) bhai when we were planning for the T20 World Cup (2024), then on to the Champions Trophy. We just carried it well,” Rohit Sharma said.

Rohit Sharma’s omission of Gautam Gambhir, despite discussing the Champions Trophy 2025 at length, is significant because Gambhir, not Dravid, was the Team India head coach at that time. However, Sharma credited the victory to the “process” initiated by Rahul Dravid.

“He always shows gratitude to Rahul Dravid… I wish Gambhir had been more professional and fair with him… he should have been captain,” commented an Indian cricket fan.

Rohit Sharma on Australia tour

Even after the Champions Trophy comments, the conversation continued. Rohit Sharma was asked about the upcoming Australia tour. The change of captaincy was not mentioned. Then, Rohit Sharma said he loved going to Australia.

“It’s a very challenging country to play cricket. The people there love the game as well. Certainly, Australia will throw a different challenge…But, yeah, having been there now several times, I do understand what to expect.

“Hopefully, we can go there and do what an Indian team is supposed to do: Try and win games, try and get the result in our favour and try and do well there,” he concluded.

Again, there was not a single mention of Gautam Gambhir.