After much anticipation, the day has finally arrived. Gautam Gambhir has been appointed as the new head coach of India Cricket Team. But the question remains, is Gautam Gambhir the right choice to coach India’s Test Team? The ideal choice for Team India would have to introduce a split coaching.
The BCCI announced that Gambhir would be India’s new head coach after Rahul Dravid completed his tenure. But with the every changing modern game approach Gambhir would be the idea fit in white ball cricket. After two relatively campaigns as mentor with Lucknow Super Giants, Gambhir returned to KKR and made the Kolkata outfits the winner of IPL 2024.
Why Split Coaching was favourable?
But red ball cricket is very much different from white ball cricket. Thus in such a scenario, a second head coach would have been the perfect fit. And given that there will be spilt captaincy, split coaching would have been no different.
After winning the T20 World Cup, Rohit Sharma retired from the shortest format of the game. It is believed that Hardik Pandya would take the reins to lead India in T20Is. Rohit would remain as the skipper in ODIs and Test cricket.
Gautam Gambhir’s lack of experience as being the head coach in his career will also a big role. Previously both at LSG and KKR, Gambhir was the mentor. And with his aggressive style of play, it can cause a big blow to India’s aspirations of lifting the WTC title.
So if not Gambhir then who? VVS Laxman would have been the ideal candidate. Laxman is currently serving as the interim head coach as India is touring Zimbabwe. He is also the head of the National Cricket Academy (NCA). Furthermore, Laxman being a dominant Test player, and with his prowess would have been the perfect candidate to coach India’s Test team.
