Will never talk about personal milestones in my tenure: Indian coach Gambhir

Gautam Gambhir can never get tired of stating this one belief In fact he repeats it at every opportunity for anyone who hasnt taken note individual milestones wont be celebrated in his tenure as head coachThe latest reminder of this staunchlyheld principle came from him after India picked up their third T20 World Cup trophy here on Sunday hammering New Zealand by 96 runs in the final with a nearperfect allround performanceI think my simple philosophy with Surya India T20 captain Suryakumar Yadav has always been that milestones dont matter Its the trophies that matter For too long in Indian cricket weve spoken about milestones And I hope till Im there were not going to talk about milestones Gambhir a twotime top scorer for his team in ICC global finals said it forcefullyThe former BJP MP then urged the cricket media to celebrate trophies not milestones Stop celebrating milestones celebrate trophies That is going to be important because the bigger purpose of a team sport is to be winning trophies not scoring individual runs It has never mattered to me and it will never matter to me he reiteratedI have been very fortunate that Surya and me were on the same page especially on this front said Gambhir No names were taken but it is not too difficult to understand who are the milestone men he was referring toIn Indian cricket it is an open secret that Gambhir has always found his gamechanging 97 in the 2011 World Cup final or his 75 in the 2007 T20 World Cup summit clash being underappreciatedIn both cases it was Mahendra Singh Dhonis matchwinning six 2011 and his masterstroke of giving Joginder Sharma the last over 2007 that became part of Indian crickets folkloreGambhir gave the example of Sanju Samsons knocks in the virtual quarterfinal against the West Indies and the ones he played in the semifinal and final as finest example of how to play a team sportYou can see it in the last three games what Sanju did 97 not out 89 88 89 Imagine if you would have been playing for a milestone probably we wouldnt have got 250 So I think this is for you guys as well Gambhir saidSocial media trash talk doesnt matterMany of Gambhirs philosophies are debatable there are inherent contradictions if one digs deeper but there is no denying that in the last two years he has been less appreciated for Indias triumphs and almost always drawn criticism for the disastersThe social media wars between fan groups havent helped his cause either But the man doesnt care for the opinion of those who are watching from the sidelinesFirst of all my accountability is not towards any social media My accountability is mostly towards those 30 people who are sitting in the dressing roomeven if I win two ICC trophies as a coach it really doesnt matter because in the future I think those 30 people matter the most to me in my coaching tenure no one else matters intense as ever he made his point quite clearly about the social media gameTeams built on trust not hopeThose who havent tracked Gambhirs journey during his formative years as a cricketer wouldnt know that he was deeply impacted by the vagaries of team selection right from the time he played for DelhiIntensity became a synonym for his personality and a portrait of Smiling Gambhir became rarer than a Vincent Van Gogh oil painting Once he became the coach he knew that he had to make players believe that they wont be treated unfairlySo he backed Abhishek Sharma through his poor form along with Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan who were battling their own issues Ultimately all three of them repaid the faith in the best way possibleI think you pick the team on trust and faith You dont pick on hope So when you pick someone on trust and faith you dont lose that trust and faith after four or five games As simple as it can get Ive never ever felt that weve ever picked a team on hope he saidThe trust and the faith that all of us had in the squad that we had in the dressing room irrespective of whether we would have won this tournament The faith and trust would have exactly remained the same So for me I think that is something which is very important And that will never go away the trust and faithThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever