BCCI official confirms Gautam Gambhir’s dismissal from cards, exposes tensions behind the scenes
Head coach of the Indian national cricket team Gautam Gambhir came under extensive scrutiny following the team’s poor performance in the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Things are not looking good in the locker room with the head coach at the helm.
According to reports in PTI, it is learned that head coach Gautam Gambhir and the senior players of the team are not on the same page. This has disrupted things in the dressing room as the players believe that communication is not as good as it was during Ravi Shastri and Rahul Dravid’s time.
The players have not shown much confidence in Gautam Gambhir, the head coach is not in good terms with the selection committee
Captain Rohit Sharma, who is known for giving clarity to all the players by talking to them, has not done the same since Gambhir took over the team in July. The captain allegedly did not explain to some of the not-so-junior players why they were occasionally excluded from the side.
It is learned that players who are younger than Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli but older than the rookies like Harshit Rana or Nitish Reddy did not show much confidence in Gambhir. It is also stated that the position of the head coach in the selection committee is not great either.
Gautam Gambhir’s experiments with playing XI have made some players insecure
Gambhir reportedly made some players insecure due to experiments with playing XI. While his best to include Nitish Kumar Reddy functioned, the handling of young batsman Shubman Gill was highly debatable after he was dropped from the squad for the Melbourne Test.
A source close to the BCCI said that with the Sydney Test around the corner and the Champions Trophy also there, if the team’s performance does not improve, then Gautam Gambhir’s position will not be secure.
If the performance does not improve, even Gautam Gambhir’s position would not be secure – BCCI official
A BCCI official made a bold claim that Gambhir was not the first choice as the team’s head coach as the board wanted VVS Laxman to take over the role. While he called the current head coach a compromiser, he explained:
“We have a test match to play and then the Champions Trophy. If the performance doesn’t improve, even Gautam Gambhir’s position would not be secure,”
“He was never BCCI’s first choice (it was VVS Laxman) and some of the big foreign names didn’t want to coach all three formats, so he was a compromise. Obviously there were some other compulsions.”
The Indian cricket team is trailing by a margin of 2-1 in the series. They won the first game in Perth and then lost in Adelaide before the draw unraveled at the Gabba. In the last match in Melbourne, Australia won by a margin of 184 runs. The next match will be played on January 3 in Sydney.
