Gautam Gambhir took over the responsibility as the head coach of India on 9 July, 2024 succeeding Rahul Dravid. Gambhir, the 2007 and 2011 World Cup winner had an extremely successful stint with Kolkata Knight Riders in Indian Premier League 2024, as his team won the title.
Rahul Dravid ended his tenure as the head coach of India with a T20 World Cup win. After he stepped down it was somewhere expected that there might be different head coaches for different formats but BCCI had other plans, they went forward with the same head coach for all the three formats by appointing Gambhir.
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Jay Shah’s insightful take on one coach for all the three formats
In conversation with the BCCI secretary Jay Shah explained the decision:
“We’ve to listen to the coach we recruit. Once we have selected Gautam Gambhir and if he is interested to coach in all three formats, who am I to say ‘you can’t coach a particular format’. More or less 70 per cent players are the same in all three formats.”
He also mentioned that there were enough back-ups for the role of head coach:
“We have coaches from the NCA. When Rahul Dravid was taking a break, VVS Laxman used to step in.”
Gautam Gambhir as the new head coach for the Indian Team after Dravid
Gautam Gambhir‘s coaching tenure with Team India began with their Sri Lanka tour with three-match T20I series which the team won by 3-0. Following that India played an ODI series which the host won by 2-0.
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The marquee players for Team India, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli recently announced their retirement from the T20Is after winning the T20 World Cup 2024 against South Africa. This can prove to be a bigger challenge for Gambhir to guide and stabilize a T20I team. Following which Suryakumar Yadav was declared as the captain for Team India in the T20 format.
Even though Gautam Gambhir’s start with Team India was a little upsetting but now Team India will be looking forward to a two-match Test series against Bangladesh which is followed by three T20Is. Apart from that another significant focus will be on the Border-Gavaskar trophy in Australia, which is scheduled to begin on November 22. The series has been expanded to a five-match Test series and India has a hold over the trophy since 2017, with a win over Australia since the last two tours.
