Dravid recently ended his coaching tenure with the senior men's cricket team, following the Rohit-led India's 2024 T20 World Cup triumph, and was all praise for the senior players, saying they are not at all difficult to manage. Dravid took over as India's full-time coach in late 2021 and held the post till this year's T20 WC, in West Indies and the USA.
Under him, India played the WTC 2023 final, 2023 ODI WC final, won the Asia Cup (ODIs) and the T20 WC, to end their 13-year-long ICC title drought.
'Many think they have big egos and are very difficult to manage'
Speaking on the senior cricketers, Dravid told Star Sports, "There were a lot of other senior players as well, whether it was Virat, Bumrah, or Ashwin in Test cricket that we played. So many of them - just because a lot of Indian cricketers are big names, and they are superstars, and rightly so, and they're followed by so many people - sometimes people think that they have big egos and that they are very difficult to manage."
He added, "A lot of these superstars are actually very humble about their preparation.
They are humble about their work ethic. And that is why they are superstars. Look at Ashwin today; at this age, he's willing to adapt, he's willing to learn. So just one example. Of course, at times you have to manage them, manage their bodies, manage the workload, a lot of those things. But to be honest, it was not very difficult."
Post Dravid's end of tenure, he was been succeeded by former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir, until the 2027 ODI WC.
Moreover, a lot of changes have happened in Indian cricket. Rohit, Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja retired from T20Is, with Suryakumar Yadav succeeding Hitman as the T20I captain. Rohit remains the Test and ODI skipper.