Hope Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid help India win an ICC tournament: Gautam Gambhir

The Indian team’s semi-final dreams came to a daunting end on Sunday as New Zealand beat Afghanistan by 8 wickets in Abu Dhabi. The Kiwis and India’s arch rivals Pakistan have qualified for the last four from Group 2. Former India opener Gautam Gambhir has said it’s been long since India last won an ICC tournament and he hopes the Men in Blue can end that drought under their new head coach Rahul Dravid. India’s early exit from the T20 World Cup meant that their ICC trophy drought has extended to 8 years.

Speaking to Star Sports after India’s chances of sneaking through to the knock-out stage of the tournament was smoked by Afghanistan’s loss to New Zealand, Gambhir said, Rohit Sharma is the right man to  take over from Virat Kohli as the captain of India’s T20I team. Virat Kohli will be leading team India in T20Is for the last time against Namibia on Monday.

Meanwhile India’s exit from the competition meant that the 2007 champions have bowed out without reaching the knockout stage of an ICC tournament for the first time since the 2012 T20 World Cup. India were  thrashed by Pakistan in their opening match of the Super 12 stage and then went on to lose against New Zealand in the second game.

After losing in the opening two games, India’s chances to go through to the business end of the competition relied on other results, and it was not meant to be as Pakistan and New Zealand went through. Pakistan topped the group with five wins from as many games while New Zealand secured the second spot with four wins from five games.

“Looking forward to it (Dravid’s tenure as coach). India will have a new captain as well and I hope Rohit Sharma gets it because 5 IPL titles, what more do you want from someone? The most successful captain in the history of the IPL and hopefully he and Rahul Dravid can take Indian cricket forward. Probably can win an ICC tournament as well. It’s been a long time now, it’s been 14-15 years we haven’t won a T20 tournament,” Gambhir said.

In the third match, India bounced back to defeat Afghanistan by 66 runs. And then in the next game, the Virat Kohli-led side beat Scotland by 8-wickets.

India has the firepower to play fearless cricket: Gambhir

Gambhir also said that India should rethink the way they play T20Is, he feels that India has the firepower to play like England, fearless cricket. He also opined that people should be patient before focusing on results as it will take time.

“Hopefully, Rohit and Rahul can take Indian cricket forward and probably can create a template, the way they want to go about in the T20 format. I hope they go about it same England goes because you have got the ability to do it,” Gambhir added.

“Sometimes, if you ask a team like New Zealand to do it, they might not be able to do it because they have not got enough firepower but with people like Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya, they have the ability to be fearless.

“The responsibility will not only be on Rahul Dravid and whoever the new cptain is but the experts, the media anad the selectors to let them go out and play that way. it’s easy to say standing here that we should play that way but it’s important to back them even if they fail or don’t perform.

“We have got to realise that all of us need to support that template,” he added.