Gautam Gambhir. (Pic Credit – X)
NEW DELHI: Defeat in the
Border Gavaskar Trophy
(BGT) has put the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in motion on various fronts. There is a lot of chatter around the new guidelines for players and support staff and while they are yet to be shared officially, such a diktat coming out of the BCCI office is not something the country’s top cricketers would have experienced in recent times.
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Repeated batting failures, captaincy issues, individual performances, possible discontent — the last few weeks in Indian cricket have been like putting the house back in order before things get out of hand. But former India cricketer and ex-chairman of the BCCI Selection Committee, Sunil Joshi, believes there is no need for any knee-jerk reactions, especially related to the personnel in charge.
“I personally feel there shouldn’t be any knee-jerk reactions after the BGT (result). I mean we have lost the BGT, accept it…They (Australia) played better cricket. Let’s accept it,” said Joshi, talking to Timesofindia.com.
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Questions have also been raised on the performance of head coach Gautam Gambhir and his coaching staff. The BGT marked the completion of the first six months of their new job, since Rahul Dravid and his staff completed their tenures last June.
On the coaching front, there are some suggestions which include appointing separate coaches for white-ball and red-ball cricket. Joshi, however, believes India shouldn’t take that road.
“We should not be going the western way,” said the former left-arm spinner, pointing at the split-coaching approach adopted by England, before Brendon McCullum was put in charge for all formats recently.
“We should be going our own way, what suits us, because the majority of our players are going to be there for all three formats. Very few exceptions are there who are going to feature (only) in Tests or T20s and ODIs. So it doesn’t make any difference.”
Gambhir hasn’t had a good start to his international coaching career in Tests, losing 6 of the 10 matches he has been in charge so far. He is yet to win an ODI as coach, while his record in T20Is has been spotless, winning 6/6.
Gambhir’s successful stints as mentor of defending Indian Premier League champions Kolkata Knight Riders and the Lucknow Super Giants played a big role in him getting the India job. During his playing days, he was also part of India’s white-ball teams that won the 2007 T20 World Cup and the 2011 ODI World Cup.
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Joshi believes those statistics and facts shouldn’t become the premise to suddenly limit Gambhir’s role to just
white-ball cricket
, while the vision at the time of his appointment as head coach included all three formats..
“When you have two coaches, there’ll be two different views on how to play cricket, although you might say they are all professionals and everything. But still, there is the 1% possibility of being judgemental,” said Joshi.
“Prior to a particular series, the white-ball coach will come, then the other coach (for Tests). Then they’ll start doing different sorts of training. There are completely different dynamics when you have multiple coaches for multiple teams. That’s my view on that,” he concluded.