India’s Test 11s in the recent past might not suggest so, but increasingly, international cricket is veering towards specialists. Test specialists who might fuse some of the elements of limited-overs play into their batting, especially, but nevertheless batters capable of batting time better than others. One-Day specialists who need a slightly different skillset from their T20 counterparts. And the 20-over experts who must be strong and powerful with the bat, capable of slotting into different positions, and who must be parsimonious and versatile with the ball, especially in the first six overs of the PowerPlay and the last few overs at the death.
Cricket is inexorably headed in that direction, if it isn’t already there. Only India seem to be caught betwixt and between when it comes to the five-day game. If one takes the last Test they played, and lost, against South Africa in Guwahati, there were only six specialists – K.L. Rahul, Yashashvi Jaiswal, Sai Sudharsan, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj. The other five were all-rounders of different ilk and class. Stand-in skipper Rishabh Pant and Dhruv Jurel, playing as a specialist batter, are both wicketkeepers, Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar are spinning all-rounders, the former obviously more seasoned, pedigreed and experienced than the latter, still in his infancy as a Test cricketer. And Nitish Kumar is a seam-bowling all-rounder in whom the management group seems to have great faith, even if his returns since the century in the Boxing Day Test last December have been anything but encouraging.
It is evitable that there will be some overlap between the Test and the ODI setups, just as there will be some commonality between the 50-over and T20 playing groups, but gradually, there is a disconnect between those playing Tests and those in the T20 mind space, particularly from a batting standpoint. The only batter who is a regular, and even that in the last three months, in these two formats that are as different from each other as chalk is from cheese is Shubman Gill, the Test skipper who was named Suryakumar Yadav’s vice-captain ahead of and after the T20 Asia Cup in Dubai in September. Gill, also the ODI leader, is the all-iteration captain-in-waiting, though the wisdom of burdening a relatively young player with so much responsibility so early is being questioned more vehemently now, with the neck injury that kept him out of the Guwahati Test attributed to a burgeoning physical workload exacerbated by constant travel involving long flights across vastly different time zones in a very limited period of time.
If, therefore, playing groups can be, and are, different, then why not the coaching staff? It’s hardly a radical move, given that international teams have had this split-coaching principle in place for a while. In fact, until April, South Africa, India’s opponents in three ODIs and five T20Is over the next fortnight, were the prime examples of having different bosses for red- and white-ball internationals. Shukri Conrad was in charge of the Test team while Rob Walter was the limited-overs coach until he resigned six months back, by which time he had steered the team to the final of the T20 World Cup in the Americas in June last year, and to the semifinals of the 50-over World Cup in India in November 2023.
England too had different heads until the start of this year, with Brendon McCullum espousing the ‘Bazball’ brand in Test cricket and Matthew Mott coaching the white-ball outfits. Mott oversaw a disastrous 50-over World Cup campaign two years back when, with just three wins from nine matches, Jos Buttler’s side finished a lowly seventh among the 10 teams in the fray, ahead only of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Netherlands. England had a better run in the T20 World Cup last year, making it to the semis, but clearly, their white-ball cricket was in desperate need of fresh ideas and energy.
Title triumphs at the home 50-over showpiece event in 2019 and in the T20 World Cup in Australia in 2022 appeared distant memories, hence the SOS to McCullum to reprise the Test approach – which has been entertaining without being fruitful – in the abridged versions too. In the only major competition in the McCullum era, the Champions Trophy in Pakistan and the UAE in February-March, England finished bottom of the heap in Group B following losses to South Africa, Australia and Afghanistan. But surely, McCullum needs more time with the white-ball setup – and time he does have, given that his contract runs till the 50-over World Cup in Africa in late 2027.
Perhaps it’s time for India to go in the opposite direction from South Africa and England, and split the coaching responsibilities, for more reasons than one. For starters, given the demand the team commands, especially in limited-overs action, there is a surfeit of cricket which can leave even the most passionate, the most committed and the most battle-hardened, all of which incumbent head coach Gautam Gambhir certainly is, physical drained, mentally weary and strategically stretched. For another, while Gambhir’s CV when it comes to the 50- and 20-over faceoffs, both tournament-wise and bilaterally, is impeccable, his record as Test coach is less than desirable, marked as it has been by a confusing, if not confused, selection policy which might put even a revolving door to shame.
Packed schedule
Let’s take a look at India’s recent schedule. For the first time in recent memory, the team had a month-long break after the gruelling five-Test tour of England between June and August, by a distance the crowning glory of Gambhir’s Test coaching career thus far. After the 2-2 draw with a young side in India’s first series since the retirements of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and R. Ashwin — a monumental achievement, given how few of the batters had played a Test in England previously — India have constantly been on the road, in a
manner of speaking.
Gill’s side returned from England in the first week of August. After a rare hiatus that gave them the chance to regroup and recalibrate their focus, they reached Dubai in the first week of September for the T20 Asia Cup, under Suryakumar with Gill as
his new deputy. India won all seven matches on their way to the title, the final played in Dubai on September 28. The first of two Tests against West Indies began on October 2, the Test series ending on 14th in Delhi. The first ODI against Australia was in Perth on October 19, the last of five T20Is on that tour being played on November 8.
Gambhir, the rest of the support staff and some of the players flew from Brisbane to Kolkata almost immediately for the first Test against South Africa, from November 14. The ill-fated two-Test series is followed by three ODIs and five T20Is as the final phase of preparation for the title defence of the T20 World Cup gets going. All this is great for air miles but not so much for the body and the mind; mental fatigue is often more debilitating than physical tiredness and it isn’t just the players who are susceptible. The players at least have the odd day off, they have the choice of not turning up at an optional practice session. There is no such luxury at the coaching/support staff’s disposal, so burnout isn’t imaginary but a very genuine threat.
True, there isn’t as much Test cricket as there is white-ball action — India aren’t scheduled to play an away Test till August next year, in Sri Lanka, and there is no home match in the World Test Championship campaign for the whole of 2026 – but given Gambhir’s travails with the red-ball unit, maybe it won’t be the worst idea to bring in a fresh face so that the responsibility and the duties can be shared around, there will be no temptation to use results in one format to make up for disasters in the other and so that there will be greater accountability and answerability. After India were crushed by 408 runs in Guwahati — their heaviest Test defeat ever — last week, Gambhir was asked if he thought he was the right man for the Test job.
“I’m the same guy who got results in England, with a young team,” he countered. “And I’m the same guy who won, under whom we won the (50-over) Champions Trophy and the (T20) Asia Cup as well.”
He’s also the same guy under whom his side has now lost two of their last three home Test series, unprecedented in Indian cricket. Last year, in Gambhir’s second series in charge, India were hammered 0-3 by a New Zealand side itself shocked at the outcome, considering the country’s last Test win on India soil had come as long back as in November 1988. Gambhir sought to separate that 0-3 whitewash with this 0-2 rout by South Africa by alluding to changed sides. But the common thread is a vulnerability against spin — India were undone by rank turners and by opposition tweakers for three Tests is a row — that seems lost on the coaching staff when it is as clear as day to everyone else, including to Rahul, the stand-in ODI skipper who conceded that he and his mates had much work to do to get better against the turning ball.
Entirely different coaching setups/structures for red- and white-ball formats might be revolutionary from an Indian standpoint, but perhaps that is what is the need of the hour. It will allow the head coaches and their staff the time and the energy to make studied decisions and ensure that while there will be overlap, it will be on the back of performances and pedigree, not just on potential and possibilities, hope and optimism. Despite India losing 10 of 19 Tests overall under Gambhir and five of nine at home, the former opener enjoys the backing of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. That’s commendable. But so will be the splitting of coaching duties because ultimately, as Gambhir himself loves to point out, no individual is greater than the game.
