Former cricketer-turned-commentator Aakash Chopra has said that Ravi Shastri will be disappointed as he failed to win an ICC tournament during his stint as Team India's head coach.
With New Zealand defeating Afghanistan in their Super 12 clash on Sunday (November 7), India’s dream of qualifying for the ongoing T20 World Cup semi-final came to an end.
Notably, Shastri’s tenure as India’s chief coach ends after the dead-rubber Super 12 clash against Namibia on Monday (November 8) and he will be replaced by Rahul Dravid.
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"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," Chopra said in a video posted on his Youtube channel.
Shastri had served the Indian team as a director from 2014 till 2016. He was made the full-time coach in 2017 before the BCCI re-appointed him in 2019.
Under Shastri, India have done reasonably well, winning two Test series in Australia and a number of bilateral series in white-ball cricket but the team couldn’t lift an ICC trophy.
Besides the T20 World Cup 2021, India reached the final of the inaugural ICC World Test Championship and the semi-final of 2019 ODI World Cup with Shastri at the helm of affairs.
According to Chopra, Ravi Shastri failed to bring an all-out attacking approach to India's limited-overs cricket.
"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."
However, Aakash Chopra praised Ravi Shastri for India’s Test exploits away from home.
"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."
He also pointed out that New Zealand was probably the only country where the Indian team was outplayed in a Test series during Shastri's tenure.
"We should have won in South Africa, 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."
