There continues to be a growing doubt about Gautam Gambhir‘s tactics in the India Cricket Team. Former India pacer Zaheer Khan has heavily criticised Gambhir claiming flexibility in the team is fine, but the latter is creating insecurity. Khan further warned Gambhir that such insecurity will surely come back to hurt the India head coach.
Questions have been raised over team selection and batting combinations. In the first ODI, it was Yashasvi Jaiswal who opened. Shreyas Iyer later revealed that he wasn’t a part of the XI but Kohli’s injury forced him to play. This raises two questions – Dropping in-form Iyer from number 4 and pushing down Gill from his opener’s spot.
Too much flexibility causes Insecurity – Zaheer Khan
Furthermore, the KL Rahul-Axar Patel experiment too has been criticized by one and all. KL Rahul has been demoted to number 6 in both games. Meanwhile, lower-order batter Axar Patel has been promoted up the order, before Rahul. Zaheer Khan said that flexibility is fine as long as it adheres to the guidelines. He hinted that too many changes can force insecurity among players to creep up.
“You’ve said that you’ve got to have the flexibility. Number one and two will be there but the others are going to be flexible. Within that flexibility, some rules also apply. There are certain protocols you have to follow. Certain communication needs to happen, which is gonna streamline things. Otherwise, you are creating insecurity, which, at some stage, will come back and hurt you. You don’t want it to be the case. So you’ve got to be prepared to deal with that situation,” Zaheer told Cricbuzz.
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When asked to draw parallels between Dravid and Gambhir’s coaching style, Zaheer didn’t choose sides. He claimed that players performing recently have become biased in getting their place on the team. Zaheer advocated for clear communication between every member to ensure no bad blood and transparency.
“That’s why I said recency bias is something very strong right now. The situation has become dynamic if you have to compare Rahul Dravid’s approach and Gautam Gambhir’s approach. You can say it’s good, bad or ugly, or you can say how do we adapt. Each individual is a part of this system, be it the senior management or the think tank, be it the players, be it the selectors. They will have to gauge it, and the entire system needs to be streamlined for the wheel to turn properly,” he added.
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