The newly appointed Head Coach of the Indian, Gautam Gambhir will start his reign with a bilateral T20 and ODI Series against Sri Lanka. The first T20I between the two Asian sides will take place on Saturday, 27th July 2024. But the Lankan challenge, or rather the lack of challenge is just a small step for Gambhir towards overcoming 3 major challenges in his tenure. Let’s take a look at what these 3 challenges are.
1. Performing with the Old Guard in Tests
The format about which Gautam Gambhir needs to worry the least is ODI’s. That’s the easiest format for players who are coming back from a break. But the same cannot be said about Test Cricket. Especially not in the middle of the ongoing WTC Cycle. India will go down under in December with hopes of winning a historic third straight series against the Aussies in a row. There will be a lot of pressure on Gambhir’s shoulders to make his squad perform.
Team India are in somewhat of a similar situation to the one they were in 2011-12. Where a significant group of players were on the verge of retirement when they visited Australia. VVS Laxman, Sachin Tendulkar, and Rahul Dravid to name a few. This time around, India’s most important players in all-whites are once again the Old Guard of Ravichandran Ashwin, Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja and Virat Kohli. It’ll be the new head’s job to make sure that the veterans keep on performing at their best for as long as possible.
The Australian challenge will be followed by a Test series in England. Followed by a hopeful WTC Final.
2. Reconstructing the T20I team
With crucial players announcing retirement from the shortest format of the game, the Indian T20 setup has never looked as fresh and as inexperienced as it looks now. There is a new breed of cricketers, the ones including Abhishek Sharma, Jaiswal, Gill, and Rinku. These coupled with some experienced veterans in Pandya, Pant and Suryakumar make for an interesting batting dynamic.
On the other hand, India seriously lacks quality in their substitutes for their frontline bowlers. Gautam Gambhir will have his task cut out to find replacements for Shami, Bumrah, etc before it’s too late. This revamp of the T20 Indian team is a crucial process with the next T20 World Cup just 2 years away in 2026 to be hosted in India.
3. No ego clashes regarding Captaincy
One area where Gautam Gambhir needs to seriously work on is making sure that the Indian dressing room which is and will be going through a lot of changes soon, has a stable environment to thrive in. Where teammates are like family to each other and there are seldom any ego clashes. This is a tough job as we saw at Mumbai Indians at the last IPL season.
There will be a lot of ambitious blood flowing through the veins of Hardik Pandya, Shubhman Gill, Jasprit Bumrah, Suryakumar Yadav, etc. With the Indian captaincy, the long run is still quite an unsolved and uncertain issue, every player ambitious enough would want to lead the country. And at this point in time, there’s no clear candidate for it. That will be one of the problems Gautam Gambhir would have to find a solution for.
