India’s head coach Gautam Gambhir insists that despite multiple setbacks, India does not become a bad team in a matter of four games.
| Photo Credit: AP
India’s T20 squad is in transition following a “reset”, declared head coach Gautam Gambhir as he attributed the horrendous run in the ongoing tour of the U.K. to an acute lack of game awareness and failure to read the conditions correctly.
India slumped to their heaviest-ever T20I defeat in terms of runs, losing by 125 to England in the third T20I on Tuesday (July 7, 2026). The visitors are now 0-2 down in the five-match series. This comes after a maiden bilateral series defeat to Ireland last month.
“We just haven’t played well,” Gambhir said at the post-match press conference here.
“There are a lot of changes from the XI that played the T20 World Cup final to now. Be it the captain, be it the opening batsman. There is no Hardik Pandya, there is no Jasprit Bumrah,” he later pointed out.
“When you go for that reset, it takes a bit of time. If you see, a 15-year-old [Vaibhav Sooryavanshi] is opening, Prince Yadav is in his second T20I, Harshit Rana is coming back from an injury. We ultimately look only at results, and no doubt results are important in international cricket, but we have to be practical as well,” he added.
The team is now led by Shreyas Iyer, while World Cup-winning captain Suryakumar Yadav is no longer part of the T20 setup owing to a lengthy lean run with the bat.
Gambhir insisted that despite multiple setbacks, India do not become a bad team in a matter of four games.
“Sometimes the opposition plays better than you. Sometimes you don’t assess the conditions well enough and you don’t read them well enough. Reading the game is equally important. We haven’t done that since Ireland,” he said.
“We haven’t adapted well. Whether it was in Ireland or here in England, that has been the reality. Had we adapted better and played better cricket, we wouldn’t have lost four matches in a row.”
Need time
Gambhir said the new entrants deserve some time before they settle into their roles and asserted that there was nothing extraordinary about a few losses during a period of transition.
“When you go to reset a side, sometimes you get such performances. Sometimes you give players time to develop. England is a high-quality side. If you put players in against such teams, you have to give them time to develop. Because after a reset, things take time,” he said.
India were bundled out for just 76 in the third T20I as they struggled against England’s pace attack led by Jofra Archer and Josh Tongue. Gambhir acknowledged the need for better approach against them.
“I don’t know what England are going to do in the remaining games, but we certainly have to get better against pace. Today was probably one of those off days because in the previous two T20Is we scored around 190. When you play a high-risk brand of cricket, days like this can happen,” he said.
Gambhir also stressed that understanding match situations is as important as skill.
“It is important to assess the conditions, but it is equally important to read the game. Sometimes the breeze can play a huge role. Sometimes one side of the ground has much bigger dimensions than the other.
“These are small things, but in T20 cricket they can make a massive difference,” he said.
The India coach, however, had words of praise for fast bowler Prince Yadav, who impressed with figures of 2 for 30 in only his second T20I.
“It is easy to look only at the figures, but look at the overs he bowled. He bowled in the Powerplay, at the death and in difficult phases of the innings.
“To produce a performance like that in just his second T20I shows he has a bright future. I hope he keeps working hard and keeps getting better,” Gambhir said.
Published – July 08, 2026 12:39 pm IST
