‘Kept me young’: Former India coach on sharing dressing room with Dhoni, Kohli & Rohit

The Indian cricket team reached unprecedented heights during MS Dhoni’s tenure as the skipper of the team from 2007 to 2016. The legendary skipper started off leading the team featuring stalwarts like Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, and others, before building a squad around Virat Kohli, and Rohit Sharma among others. Meanwhile, speaking on the Fan’s Reporter with Vimal Kumar, former Indian head coach Ravi Shastri has revealed what it was like to share the Indian dressing room with Dhoni, Kohli, and Rohit together.

It is pertinent to mention that Kohli took over India’s captaincy in the Test format after Dhoni’s retirement from red-ball cricket in 2014. Kohli then went on to become the ODI and T20I skipper in 2017. On the other hand, Rohit is currently the all-format captain of India, having taken over the reins from Virat. 

'Seven years, three captains': Ravi Shastri on MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, & Rohit Sharma

During the conversation, Shastri was asked by the host about his connection with the aforementioned trio, who belonged to a completely different generation of players. Answering the question, Shastri said, “The personality should always remain the same, why should you change it? Because you meet many people who are younger than you. You should remain what you are. Personally, I enjoyed a lot working with this generation. Seven years, three captains, working with the boys was a different experience. Being in their company, kept me young”.

Ravi Shastri's playing and coaching career for Team India

The 60-year-old former head coach is one of the legends of Indian cricket. During his playing career for India from 1981 to 1992, he scored almost 7000 runs for India, while taking 280 wickets across the Test and ODI formats. He also featured in the iconic Indian squad that won the country’s maiden cricket world cup title under Kapil Dev’s captaincy in 1983.

His first assignment as a coach for India arrived in 2007 when he took over the role on a temporary basis for the team’s tour of Bangladesh. Shastri then landed a two-year stint as Team India’s director in 2014. After Anil Kumble’s tenure as the head coach concluded in 2017, the legendary allrounder was named as India’s head coach.