The Indian Cricket Team continues to slide down in performances under the guidance of head coach Gautam Gambhir.
He faces scrutiny on various factors like dressing room unrest, team selection debates and disappointing performances in the Border Gavaskar Trophy, with the Champions Trophy 2025 being the last option test to his leadership.
Gautam Gambhir will be focussed during India’s final match of the Border Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25. His head coach position has come under scrutiny after team’s string of poor performances in the ongoing series.
India team has been fading with Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s performance dip with head coach Gautam Gambhir and his support staff’s role in handling a team in transition has also come into focus.
It is reported that Gambhir and most of the players in the team and the communication isn’t good as it used to be during the time of Ravi Shastri and Rahul Dravid.
Rohit Sharma has maintained that he speaks individually to the players about selection issues. But after Gambhir took incharge 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.
But 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.
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,” said a senior BCCI official.
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 with the playing eleven.
After Jay Shah named as ICC chairman, the BCCI president Roger Binny hasn’t been seen taking any policy related calls.
India’s performance is not drastically better in Champions Trophy in February-March, Gambhir will certainly have his wing clipped.
“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.
Gambhir’s position has been seen difficult after 0-3 defeat at New Zealand and if Border Gavaskar Trophy is also lost, it can all go downhill for the former opener from Delhi’s old Rajinder Nagar.
“Gautam, all his life, while playing in England and Australia, would dab the ball towards slip and gully. So, he knows exactly what Kohli’s problem is. He has seen that as a player (in 2014) and as a commentator and now as a coach.
“If he knows what is wrong, he should tell him,” a former India great, with the experience of more than 90 Tests, said.
Australia secured a unassisable 2-1 lead in the BGT with an 184-run victory in the fourth test at Melbourne after the third match resulted in a draw. The final match of the five match series will begin on January 03 at Sydney Cricket Ground.
