When he took over the reins of India’s men’s cricket team from a successful and popular head coach Rahul Dravid in July, he was expected to carry on the legacy.
Despite the lack of coaching experience at First Class or international level, Gautam Gambhir was backed to the hilt. Not only was he handed a long-term contract but he was also allowed to handpick the members of his coaching staff.
Four months hence, Gambhir and his trusted lieutenants find themselves in a spot of bother. If the tenure-opening ODI series loss was a trailer, a never-before whitewash in a home Test series, against New Zealand, has added another black chapter to what was expected to be a multi-season web series.
No wonder then that Gambhir will be under immense pressure heading into India’s two-month tour to Australia in quest of registering a hat-trick of Test series wins Down Under.
At a time when murmurs of the coaching staff and the senior members of the squad being on different pages getting louder in Indian cricket circles, captain Rohit Sharma stood behind Gambhir and Co., stressing that the players need to make the coaching staff feel at home.
“The coaching staff have been good. They have just come in. It’s not been a lot of time for them. They are also understanding how this team operates, and how the player operates. This is obviously the first Test series loss in the two Test series that they have been part of.,” Rohit said after India lost the third Test at Wankhede Stadium on Sunday.
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“It’s the players’ responsibility to make their job or make their life easier because it’s never easy for anyone to come in and start doing what they are doing because there are a lot of different individuals here and they operate slightly differently. It’s important for the players to make sure that the thought process of the coaching staff aligns with theirs, and take it forward. It’s been only four or five months now, too early to judge anything, but they have been really, really good with the players.”
Paras Mhambrey, the bowling coach who was an integral member of Dravid’s coaching staff, had told Sportstar in an interview in July that he and his colleagues took almost a year to get used to the methods of various individuals who were regular in India’s set-up.
But with the team having lost badly and the Border Gavaskar Trophy to be followed by limited overs’ leg culminating with the ICC Champions Trophy, Gambhir will realise he needs to step up in terms of results. Add to the fact that the veteran players in the set-up are going through an indifferent run with their on-field performances and it makes Gambhir’s role even more challenging.
Gambhir himself had admitted that losing a series at home at the start of his tenure doesn’t augur well.
“I never expected a very easy run for me because international cricket is never easy and I believe that. I know that we lost in Sri Lanka, we have lost at home as well against New Zealand. It’s not a great place to be in but all we can do is be honest to ourselves and keep working hard.”
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