SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND: With the next T20 World Cup about two years away, the time has come for Team India to move on from Gautam Gambhir as their head coach. They have now faced six losses in their last seven matches in the shortest format of the game, with one being washed out.
Gambhir, with no coaching credentials to speak of, was handed the India job soon after Rahul Dravid stepped down after their victorious 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup campaign. The former India opener had only a successful season with Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League to speak of.
That the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) could be swayed by such flimsy credentials was hard to fathom, and the results are there for everyone to see. Yes, India won the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy and 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup under Gautam Gambhir, but overall, their style has become deplorable. A tinge of politics could be smelled when Gambhir was made India’s head coach.
A member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Gambhir had formerly been a Member of Parliament for East Delhi. His proximity with Jay Shah, the son of India’s home minister Amit Shah, is well known. The younger Shah was secretary of the BCCI at the time of Gambhir’s appointment. Merely a month after ending his five-year term as MP, Gambhir was handed the plush job as India’s head coach in July 2024.
Gautam Gambhir’s record as coach in Tests is horrendous
However strong the lobbying may be, the results speak largely against Gambhir. Red-ball cricket has become India’s bane. Under the Delhi man, India have lost ten out of the 18 Tests they have played, winning just six. Two games have been drawn, which takes Gambhir’s record as India’s head coach in Tests to a winning percentage of a pitiful 33.
The successive whitewashes that India faced at the hands of New Zealand and South Africa in 2024-25 put huge question marks over Gambhir’s efficacy as their coach in this format. It must be remembered that Gautam Gambhir has never coached a first-class side in his career, which means that he had zero experience when handed the Test job.
Not a lot has gone right for him in ODIs, either. He has won just 16 out of the 23 matches he has led India in, enjoying a success rate of 69.56%. In T20Is, however, his record is the most impressive, barring the recent whitewashes to Ireland and England. His success rate in this format is 69.81%.
The six losses in seven matches to Ireland and England signify that the Gambhir aura has unravelled, and that Team India desperately need someone else to herald them in a new direction. The selectors ushered in the drastic change of picking Shreyas Iyer from the wilderness and appointing him captain, and the immediate results were painful, to say the least.
Gautam Gambhir has been tested enough by Team India to know that his effectiveness is largely on Indian pitches where batters reign supreme by playing through the line. This style of play has been encouraged by the Indian Premier League (IPL), where franchises plead for flat surfaces, smaller boundaries and hapless bowling units.
Gambhir is well past his use-by date, with even white-ball cricket being beyond him
When put under challenging conditions abroad in white-ball cricket, Gambhir’s men have been found wanting. While the long-term picture will be to improve the standard of the pitches in the IPL, the short-term solution for the BCCI will be to sack Gambhir and hand someone like VVS Laxman full-time charge.
Laxman has headed the National Cricket Academy (now the Centre of Excellence) since 2021 and overseen several age-group sides, as well as the India ‘A’ pathway programs. The former Hyderabad captain has enough coaching experience under his belt to take over from Gautam Gambhir and prepare the side for the future.
The 2027 ODI World Cup is just over a year away, and the 2028 T20 World Cup is over two years away. The BCCI still has time to course-correct and right the wrongs it inflicted on Indian cricket by appointing Gambhir. Laxman, a trusted voice in the ecosystem, can wipe this mess up just as he did with his reliable batting in his celebrated career and be the saviour we are looking for.
He has initially been handed charge of the team for a three-match T20I series against Zimbabwe later this month, and if things go well (as they should), the BCCI would do well to make him India’s permanent head coach. The Gautam Gambhir gamble has put India in a precarious position in international cricket, with them having also lost the number one tag in T20Is.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE – In the hands of fools and knaves: Sanju Samson’s exclusion is India’s greatest shame in the Gautam Gambhir era
If you liked this article, consider subscribing to our website to stay in touch with the latest updates in sports. You can also follow India Sports Tribune on X and Instagram. We would love to talk to you!
Leave a Reply