Gautam Gambhir‘s tenure as the India cricket team’s head coach is going downhill quicker than an unmanned car going down the slope. Instead of ticking off achievements, he’s been breaking records for humiliations. Under him, Team India’s 27-year ODI series winning streak against Sri Lanka was broken, which was followed by the first home Test series defeat in 12 years, which also happened to be the first-ever whitewash at home for India in 92 years.
Now, the 10-year dominance against Australia in Test is also over. For the first time since 2014, Team India hasn’t won a Border-Gavaskar Trophy. They have also failed to complete a three-peat of series victories Down Under. Naturally, he’s going to get major flak.
Sunny G questions the 3 assistant coaches tactic
Sunil Gavaskar, one of India’s greatest players, has come hard at Gambhir. He questioned the Indian head coach’s decision to appoint three assistant coaches to start with and asked what exactly was their job, apart from losing to opponents left, right, and center.
“I don’t know about merit in having different coaches. That is something, you know, that we need to look at in a different scenario, not right now. But surely questions have to be asked of him (Gambhir) and his coaching staff. What were they doing that we had this situation where we are losing, losing, losing? Gavaskar told India Today.
What’s Abhishek Nayar doing?
He asked questions of the batting coach, Abhishek Nayar, under whom the batting has worsened barring the exception of Yashasvi Jaiswal. There is also Ryan ten Doeschate, who was also a batter but, from the looks of it, is employed as a mental coach for players. He was the Kolkata Knight Riders fielding coach, but since that role is played by T Dilip, his job description is uncertain.
“Because we have lost when we should not have in India against New Zealand. The batting over there was pretty ordinary. The batting over here has been pretty ordinary. So I do believe that I think questions need to be asked about that,” he added.
Morne Morkel has no plans for pacers
Morne Morkel was also under attack. Gavaskar’s qualms with Morkel were the lack of tactics, i.e., poor planning against Travis Head and Pat Cummins by the Indian fast bowlers. The southpaw ended as the highest run-scorer of the India vs Australia Test series while the pacer frustrated Team India with lower-order runs.
“Our bowling could have been better as well. We just had two bowlers. But a lot of times, the things that everybody, not just us, but including the Australians, who were talking about the kind of deliveries to be bowled to a Travis Head, to a Pat Cummins, nothing of that sort was tried. So therefore, you are going to ask the bowling coach, what was happening?” asked Gavaskar.
“And if the bowling coach said that he had also told the bowlers to do this, and the bowlers didn’t do that, then you need to question the bowlers. Why the short stuff was not tried against Head? Why the short stuff was not tried against Pat Cummins? You know, there are so many questions that can be asked,” he added.
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