Gautam Gambhir, the Indian cricket team coach, is in focus after the side’s latest string on uninspiring performances. India’s last major success came in June when it won the T20 World Cup, when Rahul Dravid was the coach. Then, Gautam Gambhir took over the role of India head coach. He was expected to oversee a period of transition in the Indian team. Since he took over, Gambhir has witnessed an ODI series loss against Sri Lanka, India getting clean-sweeped 3-0 by New Zealand at home in a Test series and some mundane displays in Australia with the side trailing 1-2 going into the final Test in Sydney. If India do not win the fifth Test, the side will be out of World Test Championship final race.
According to a report in news agency PTI, “It is learnt that Gambhir is not on the same page with most of the players in the team and the communication isn’t as good as it used to be during the time of Ravi Shastri and Rahul Dravid.
“Skipper Rohit Sharma has maintained that he speaks individually to the players about selection issues. But after Gambhir took charge in July, Rohit, it is said, hasn’t actually given clarity to some of the not-so-junior players about why they were being excluded at times from the side.”
The report further claimed that players are not feeling secure with constant experimentation going on leading to instability.
“It is also reliably learnt that Gambhir, who is considered a more assertive person, hasn’t earned a lot of confidence from the group of players, who aren’t as old as Kohli or Rohit but are also not rookies like Harshit Rana or Nitish Reddy,” report said.
“There is a Test match to be played and then there is Champions Trophy. If the performance doesn’t improve, even Gautam Gambhir’s position wouldn’t be safe,” a senior BCCI official told the news agency on conditions of anonymity.
Gambhir’s equation with the selection committee is also not particularly clear at this point. There are players in the team, who are feeling insecure because of his proclivity to experiment with the playing eleven, the report said.
But if India’s performance is not drastically better in the Champions Trophy in February-March, Gambhir will certainly have his wings clipped, the report added.
“He was never BCCI’s first choice (it was VVS Laxman) and some of the well-known overseas names didn’t want to coach all three formats, so he was a compromise. Obviously, some other compulsions were also there,” the official said.
Topics mentioned in this article
