Failing to win an ICC event might remain as a thorn in head coach Ravi Shastri's mind: Aakash Chopra

Former India opener Aakash Chopra believes head coach Ravi Shastri would be hurt by the fact that India did not win even a single ICC trophy during his tenure. Shastri, who had announced that the 2021 T20 World Cup will be his last assignment with the team, is set to be replaced by Rahul Dravid at the helm.

India have been officially knocked out of the tournament and will be playing Namibia in a dead-rubber on November 8, which will also be the last game for Virat Kohli as India’s T20I skipper, who had announced his decision to step down from the position after the conclusion of the tournament.

Speaking about Shastri’s tenure as the India coach, Chopra said that the team performed exceedingly well in bilateral assignments, but could not reap success at the big tournaments.

“Ravi Shastri will not be seen as the Indian coach hereafter. If you talk about World Cups or ICC events, you could have won at least one of the three trophies, whether it was the 2019 World Cup or the ICC mace or this World Cup. If you play three World Cups and don’t win even one of them and you don’t even qualify in one, it might remain as a thorn in his [Shastri’s] mind.”

“I feel India could have done better in white-ball cricket. We won bilateral series repeatedly, whether it was ODIs or T20Is. But the one legacy Ravi Shastri did not leave behind was that the team did not start playing a different brand of cricket,” he added.

Chopra, however, lauded Shastri for building up a brilliant Test unit, as India achieved plenty of success under him in the longest format of the game, including back-to-back series victories in Australia.

“He made a very good Test team. The Indian team went to Australia and defeated them twice, no one had done that earlier. We played well in England.”

“We should have won in South Africa [India lost 2-1 in 2018], if we had done slightly better selection, we could have won. I feel when we will go there under Rahul Dravid’s guidance, we will win as well. It won’t be that easy, their team has become good. We couldn’t conquer New Zealand [lost 2-0 in 2020].”