Gambhir gambit: Head coach's handling of India's transition raises eyebrows

As Team India is dealing with a rough patch of their stalwarts Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli head coach Gautam Gambhir and his support staffs role in handling the team has also been the talk of the townBorderGavaskar TrophyThe ongoing BorderGavaskar Trophy has been a difficult ride for Team India as the side has been struggling to find the right combination to lock horns with AustraliaThe visitors will be playing the mustwin fifth and final Test here from FridayThe onfield rollercoaster is causing some offfield issues as well with murmurs of unrest in the dressing room beginning to growThere are speculations of Gautam Gambhir not being on the same page with most of the players and the communication is not as good as it used to be during the time of Ravi Shastri and Rahul DravidRohit Sharma has maintained that he speaks individually to the players about selection issues But since Gautam Gambhir has taken charge it is said that the skipper has not given clarity to the notsojunior players about their exclusionHis own poor form hasnt helped Rohits cause But it is also reliably learnt that Gambhir who is considered a more assertive person hasnt earned a lot of confidence from the group of players who arent as old as Kohli or Rohit but are also not rookies like Harshit Rana or Nitish Kumar ReddyAlso ReadHe is one of the toughest cricketers Carey on Mitchell StarcThere is a Test match to be played and then there is Champions Trophy If the performance doesnt improve even Gautam Gambhirs position wouldnt be safe a senior BCCI official told PTI on conditions of anonymityGambhirs equation with the selection committee is also not particularly clear at this pointInclusion and exclusion of player in the playing XIThere 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 Kumar Reddy has worked out brilliantly but the handling of Shubman Gill is still being debatedBCCI secretary Jay Shah has now been elevated to the ICC chiefs position and the Board will have his fulltime successor only after January 12 Once that administrative stability is in place the BCCI brass will have some thinking to doTill Shah was in charge of BCCI he called the shots Former India seamer Roger Binny who is the current president of the Board hasnt been seen taking any policyrelated callsAhead of the Champions Trophy 2025 if Team India doesnt manage to deliver performances then certainly Gautam Gambhirs wings will be clippedHe was never BCCIs first choice it was VVS Laxman and some of the wellknown overseas names didnt want to coach all three formats so he was a compromise Obviously some other compulsions were also there the official saidGautam Gambhir has already asked tough questions after the Test series loss against New Zealand at home If the BorderGavaskar Trophys record slips away from the hands the former Indian opener and current head coach will face much backlashAlready 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 SuperGiantsVirat Kohlis outside offstump dismissal concernOne 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 neverending dismissals in the outside offstump channel By the look of things the answer to that seems to be an emphatic noGautam all his life while playing in England and Australia would dab the ball towards slip and gully So he knows exactly what Kohlis problem is He has seen that as a player in 2014 and as a commentator and now as a coachIf he knows what is wrong he should tell him a former India great with the experience of more than 90 Tests saidThe 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 assistantIt 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 jerseyIn Australia his presence in the box dedicated to BCCI members hasnt really been appreciated according to a top sourceWith PTI Inputs