Gautam Gambhir gambit: Head coach's handling of India's transition raises eyebrows

Gautam Gambhir (Pic: File Pic)

As Team India is dealing with a rough patch of their stalwarts Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, head coach Gautam Gambhir and his support staff's role in handling the team has also been the talk of the town.

Border-Gavaskar Trophy

The ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy has been a difficult ride for Team India as the side has been struggling to find the right combination to lock horns with Australia.

The visitors will be playing the must-win fifth and final Test here from Friday.

The on-field roller-coaster is causing some off-field issues as well with murmurs of unrest in the dressing room beginning to grow.

There are speculations of Gautam Gambhir not being on the same page with most of the players and the communication is not as 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 since Gautam Gambhir has taken charge, it is said that the skipper has not given clarity to the not-so-junior players about their exclusion.

His own poor form hasn't helped Rohit's cause. 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 Kumar Reddy.

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"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 PTI on conditions of anonymity.

Gambhir's equation with the selection committee is also not particularly clear at this point.

Inclusion and exclusion of player in the playing XI

There are players in the team, who are feeling insecure because of his proclivity to experiment with the playing eleven. In the ongoing BGT, a punt like Nitish Kumar Reddy has worked out brilliantly but the handling of Shubman Gill is still being debated.

BCCI secretary Jay Shah has now been elevated to the ICC chief's position and the Board will have his full-time successor only after January 12. Once that administrative stability is in place, the BCCI brass will have some thinking to do.

Till Shah was in charge of BCCI, he called the shots. Former India seamer Roger Binny, who is the current president of the Board, hasn't been seen taking any policy-related calls.

Ahead of the Champions Trophy 2025, if Team India doesn't manage to deliver performances, then certainly Gautam Gambhir's wings will be 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.

Gautam Gambhir has already asked tough questions after the Test series loss against New Zealand at home. If the Border-Gavaskar Trophy's record slips away from the hands, the former Indian opener and current head coach will face much backlash.

Already there is a school of thought that Gambhir should only be given charge of the T20 team, a format in which he has been a successful captain and then mentor for both Kolkata Knight Riders and Lucknow SuperGiants.

Virat Kohli's outside off-stump dismissal concern

One question that is being asked in the corridors of power is whether he has been able to offer any solutions to Virat Kohli with regards to his never-ending dismissals in the outside off-stump channel? By the look of things, the answer to that seems to be an emphatic no.

"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.

The BCCI mandarins are also keeping a tab on certain other developments about one of the key members of the support staff, who is being accompanied at all the venues by his personal assistant.

It is learnt that the person in question used to have FOP (Field Of Play) access during the IPL where he would stride into the playing arena after games in a franchise jersey.

In Australia, his presence in the box dedicated to BCCI members hasn't really been appreciated, according to a top source.

(With PTI Inputs)