6 min readMar 16, 2026 09:17 AM IST
First published on: Mar 16, 2026 at 12:19 AM IST
BCCI’s various winners at its annual awards on Sunday, celebrating a year when India picked 5 ICC trophies, across men and women, could be carbon-dated in various ways. The journey from determination to dominance, can literally be gauged by their cars, mobile phones, movies and video games, of the day.
Rahul Dravid recalled getting a lift from fellow Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Roger Binny back to his Indiranagar home, while chewing the 1983 World Cup winner’s brains about cricket, riding in a FIAT, “which was the Ferrari of that time.” Abhishek Sharma recalled going to a state camp with a Samsung mobile, where “only Shubman Gill had an IPhone”, Sanju Samson’s first was a Motorola with a flap, and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, carries two phones, his seniors informed with a chuckle. Hardik Pandya’s first vehicle was a Maruti 800, Samson’s a Wagon R and Abhishek’s an Activa scooty. Hardik’s favourite movie remained the 1998 Godzilla, Sooryavanshi’s Dhurandhar, while Abhishek digs 3 Idiots. While Samson grew up playing Grand Theft Auto and Abhishek Cricket 07, the teenaged Sooryavanshi’s batting had evoked a conversation between Samson and coach Dravid at Rajasthan Royals, with the senior batsman saying, “Vaibhav ki batting toh khud video game hai.”
India’s dominance leading to a surfeit of sudden titles, has hitched upon aggressive strokeplay, one hitter more explosive than the next. Dravid who coached the 2024 T20 WC winners, and Sanju, who played in the 2026 title (some might say, dragging India to it single battedly), acing the KOs, had been witness to Sooryavanshi’s IPL debut. The youngster who took the U19 final by storm, and wants to break Chris Gayle’s record of 175, was about to debut for Royals. “Me and Dravid Sir met him before his first match and Sir said we should talk to him. We asked him what he planned to do. He said, “pehla (ball) mila toh pehla hi udda denge.” I thought yeh toh video game khel rahaa Hai,” Sanju remembered. True to word, his first shot was a six over covers.
The immense potential of Indian cricket – the underlying theme of the awards celebration besides chorusing on the triumphs – was also evident in how Women’s captain Harmanpreet acknowledged how watching the U19 women’s team of Niki Prasad win back-to-back World titles had inspired the seniors team win their’s on November 2nd. The last 10 overs of the 2017 World Cup final had haunted Harman enough to replay them over and over in her head, as Indian women struggled to cross the line. “But we watched the U19s win. They were the first ones to bring the Cup. Twice. That inspired us,” she would say.
While 2025’s finest performance of Indian cricket resides with Jemimah Rodrigues, who Harman said had needed a small break before she returned to play the innings of a lifetime against Australia, Niki, the young captain, spoke of “knowing what we needed to do.” India’s Gen Next – men and women – were happily free of self doubts, and basic struggles that their predecessors, like the third Lifetime Achievement winner Mithali Raj, had been wracked with.
Both Shubman Gill and Suryakumar Yadav would talk about the utter non-necessity of giving advice to the younger bunch, who came armed with fearlessness and clarity. But a team culture, the ethos and values did tend to get passed on. Like Surya crediting the 2024 squad of Rohit-Virat and Dravid for how continuity was respected and players weren’t flung aside, with ingratitude, their experience valued.
“It was not difficult from where we left in 2024 which showed trust in players paid off. Sports has a lot of ups and downs, but we showed belief in players in the new cycle,” he explained about calls to stick with Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma and Varun Chakravarthy. “We wanted to make as less changes as possible, stand by players who did well. Gautier bhai said, we created a super team so let’s stick by them. We were playing with 8 batters, who were same for last one and half years. They took responsibility and chipped in.”
Knowledge also gets transferred in IPL, like MS Dhoni’s golden words to Ayush Mhatre that stayed with him. “Always remain cool. Decisions made in anger are always wrong.” Or Hardik who urges youngsters at Mumbai Indians to stay patient and learn new tricks everyday. The tattooed, blond-haired maverick would also talk of his earliest classical Mumbai influence: Wasim Jaffer. “I used to copy his batting. He had class, and timing.”
Shubman, who emulated his heroes Rohit bhai, Virat bhai, Ash bhai, Mahi bhai from 2013 in winning Champions Trophy, would speak of how trophies inspired the next generation. “As a kid you wanna replicate that moment. To be able to accomplish one of those (CT 2025) was a dream, it was special winning after 12 years. I learnt if you keep focusing on what you have to do, primarily as batsman score runs, all else falls into place.”
It’s how winning trophies became a habit. And India was sitting pretty with 5 of the 8 ICC Cups contested in last two years.
India's dominance leading to a surfeit of sudden titles, has hitched upon aggressive strokeplay, one hitter more explosive than the next. (PTI/ANI) 
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