Under Ravi Shastri, the Indian team became the powerhouse of aggression. With Virat Kohli as the skipper and Shastri as coach the team started to win psychological battles especially abroad. For years, Indian teams were considered soft on overseas tours with many players being targeted. But with Sourav Ganguly’s arrival at the scene, things started changing. And then Ravi Shastri and Virat Kohli invented Aggression 2.0—taking it to the next level.
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Speaking to Guardian in an exclusive, he revealed what he told his players on foreign tours. “:I was asked to hire and fire, whoever I wanted I could get in and whoever I didn’t could be shown the door. And it was also outlining how we want to play: to be aggressive and ruthless, to up the fitness levels, to get a group of fast bowlers to take 20 wickets overseas. And it was about attitude, especially when playing the Aussies. I told the boys if one single ‘fuck you’ comes your way, give them three back: two in our language and one in theirs.”
He said beating Australia not once but twice will go down in history as very special as it will be hard to achieve by others. , “How many teams can win in Australia – beating an attack with Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood from 1-0 down – and then win in England? That will be hard for any team to replicate for a long time,” he said.
Under Shastri, India went onto win 10 Test series out of 14, rising to No 1 in the rankings and beating Australia twice in their own backyard. The aggression worked wonders with India running South Africa and England really close. Not for a single moment it seemed that the team had been pushed to the back-foot on bouncy pitches. A good example could be the Johannesburg Test where India came back and beat South Africa with the team not having put enough score on the board.
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