As Indian cricket deals with the fading form of its two stalwarts in captain Rohit Sharma and senior batter Virat Kohli, head coach Gautam Gambhir and his support staff’s role in handling a team in transition has also come into focus. The ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy has been a difficult ride for the side has struggled to get the right combination in the face of an aggressive and highly-driven Australian team. The visitors will be playing the must-win fifth and final Test here from Friday.
The on-field roller-coaster is causing some off-field issues as well with murmurs of unrest in the dressing room beginning to grow.
It is learnt that Gambhir is not on the same page with most of the players in the team and the communication isn’t as good as it used to be during the time of Ravi Shastri and Rahul Dravid.
Skipper Rohit Sharma has maintained that he speaks individually to the players about selection issues. But after Gambhir took charge in July, Rohit, it is said, hasn’t actually given clarity to some of the not-so-junior players about why they were being excluded at times from the side.
His own poor form hasn’t helped Rohit’s cause. But it is also reliably learnt that Gambhir, who is considered a more assertive person, hasn’t earned a lot of confidence from the group of players, who aren’t as old as Kohli or Rohit but are also not rookies like Harshit Rana or Nitish Reddy.
“There is a Test match to be played and then there is Champions Trophy. If the performance doesn’t improve, even Gautam Gambhir’s position wouldn’t be safe,” a senior BCCI official told PTI on conditions of anonymity.
Gambhir’s equation with the selection committee is also not particularly clear at this point.
There are players in the team, who are feeling insecure because of his proclivity to experiment with the playing eleven. In the ongoing BGT, a punt like Nitish Reddy has worked out brilliantly but the handling of Shubman Gill is still being debated.
BCCI secretary Jay Shah has now been elevated to the ICC chief’s position and the Board will have his full-time successor only after January 12. Once that administrative stability is in place, the BCCI brass will have some thinking to do.
Till Shah was in charge of BCCI, he called the shots. Former India seamer Roger Binny, who is the current president of the Board, hasn’t been seen taking any policy-related calls.
But if India’s performance is not drastically better in the Champions Trophy in February-March, Gambhir will certainly have his wings clipped.
“He was never BCCI’s first choice (it was VVS Laxman) and some of the well-known overseas names didn’t want to coach all three formats, so he was a compromise. Obviously, some other compulsions were also there,” the official said.
Gambhir has already been asked a few tough questions after the 0-3 defeat at home to New Zealand and if the Border-Gavaskar Trophy is also lost, it can all go downhill for the feisty former opener from Delhi’s Old Rajinder Nagar.
Already there is a school of thought that Gambhir should only be given charge of the T20 team, a format in which he has been a successful captain and then mentor for both Kolkata Knight Riders and Lucknow SuperGiants.
One question that is being asked in the corridors of power is whether he has been able to offer any solutions to Virat Kohli with regards to his never-ending dismissals in the outside off-stump channel? By the look of things, the answer to that seems to be an emphatic no.
“Gautam, all his life, while playing in England and Australia, would dab the ball towards slip and gully. So, he knows exactly what Kohli’s problem is. He has seen that as a player (in 2014) and as a commentator and now as a coach.
“If he knows what is wrong, he should tell him,” a former India great, with the experience of more than 90 Tests, said.
“Support staff” for support staff
The BCCI mandarins are also keeping a tab on certain other developments about one of the key members of the support staff, who is being accompanied at all the venues by his personal assistant.
It is learnt that the person in question used to have FOP (Field Of Play) access during the IPL where he would stride into the playing arena after games in a franchise jersey.
In Australia, his presence in the box dedicated to BCCI members hasn’t really been appreciated, according to a top source.
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