The age of the personal milestones is over, declared India men's coach Gautam Gambhir. Let the age of India single-mindedly pursuing trophies begin. India have now won two ICC trophies and an Asia Cup under Gambhir, last year's Champions Trophy and this T20 World Cup the big prizes of his tenure so far.
"For too long in Indian cricket, we've spoken about milestones, and I hope, till I'm there, we're not going to talk about milestones," Gambhir said at a press conference after the game. "You can see it very easily as well. You can see it in the last three games, what Sanju [Samson] did - 97 not out, 89 and 89. Imagine if you would have been playing for a milestone, probably we wouldn't have got 250. So I think this is for you guys [media] as well. Stop celebrating milestones, celebrate trophies. That is going to be important, because the bigger purpose of a team sport is to be winning trophies.
"Scoring personal runs has never mattered to me, and it will never matter to me. Actually I have been very fortunate that Suryakumar Yadav and me were on the same page, especially on this front."
In both the semi-final and final, Samson had fallen attempting to hit sixes, though he was 11 runs short of a century on each occasion. Samson himself had said after the semi-final innings that he was satisfied with the approach he took, even though he did not reach triple figures. On both occasions, India's total surpassed 250.
"The best chance to give ourselves to win this World Cup was that how we react when someone like a batter is close to 100. If someone is batting on 94, does he have the courage to go and get 100 next ball, rather than thinking about getting 100 for three or four balls. I think the guys have done that brilliantly," Gambhir said. "All of them in the dressing room bought into this mindset. The only way you could hit the big totals. is when you're putting your team ahead of your own self. Everyone in that dressing room was putting the team ahead of himself, and that is the reason why we could achieve something special like this."
Gambhir also dedicated the victory to three former team-mates, who he said had laid the groundwork for his own tenure, and for the depth of talent they had helped create within Indian cricket. Rahul Dravid had coached India to T20 World Cup glory in 2024, and VVS Laxman is currently the head of the BCCI's Centre of Excellence (CoE). Dravid had also headed the centre until Laxman took over in 2021. Chief selector Ajit Agarkar was the other to be celebrated.
"I think I should dedicate this trophy to Rahul bhai and then to Laxman," Gambhir said. "Because of what Rahul bhai has done to keep Indian cricket in such good shape. I have to thank him for everything what he's done during his tenure. And then VVS Laxman for unconditionally doing so much for Indian cricket, especially behind the scenes, because CoE remains the pipeline for Indian cricket. Third is obviously Ajit Agarkar, because he does take a lot of flak and I'm thankful for the amount of honesty he's worked with."
The depth in India's talent pool had allowed the national team to shift between personnel and strategies effortlessly, Gambhir said. At the beginning of this tournament, India had played Rinku Singh down the order, and had not had a place for Samson. But by omitting Rinku, pushing Tilak Varma down the order, and bringing Samson back into the XI as opener, India found their winning combination. Samson went on to become Player of the Tournament.
"I felt that we are very blessed as a team and as a coach and captain because of the amount of depth we have in that dressing room. Because we could have played three, four, five combinations," Gambhir said. "We could have played two wristspinners. We could have played batsmen till No. 8. We could have had different combinations at the top. We had three openers who could bat any time at the top.
"It is not only about inheriting a team, it is also about creating something of your own. So that is something for me which was always something I wanted to do as a coach - that can we play a completely different brand of cricket, where people can go and say that this is the team that has consistently outscored, outbowled, and has been a fearless group of players who do not fear losing a game of cricket."