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 said 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.
