Gambhir’s Caution: ‘This Isn’t Franchise Cricket’ as Rohit and Kohli Gear Up for Meet

After the Suryakumar Yadav-led team easily won the opening two games of the three-match T20 International Series against Sri Lanka in Pallekele on Sunday, Gautam Gambhir began his tenure as head coach of the Indian men’s cricket team with remarkable results. Before the caravan travels to Colombo for the ODI series, which will take place between August 3 and 7, India still has to play the final match, which is set to happen on Tuesday at the same location.

It was Gambhir’s first-ever job as a cricket coach, for the T20I series. He has served as a mentor for the Kolkata Knight Riders and Lucknow Super Giants, two Indian Premier League (IPL) teams. However, Gambhir is well aware of the pressures and obligations of playing international cricket because he has a successful career spanning all formats. The ODI series will be difficult for the former India World Cup winner since players like skipper Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, and KL Rahul are expected to return. The T20I series may not have presented a test for him.

The largest task facing Gambhir would be handling the “superstars” on the squad, a source with years of inside knowledge of the Indian dressing room and its operations told ESPN. The source also cautioned that the team’s operations differ greatly from those of a franchise cricket team.

“It is not an easy task. It is not like a franchise model, where you are the boss and you can dictate terms. That won’t work here. In the India dressing room you will have to pick up the phone, speak to players, and Dravid was really good at doing that. Even Dravid, when he joined, would have found it a challenge with the landscape of cricket having changed since he retired: everyone is a multimillionaire and is a captain of his respective franchise. So that’s Gambhir’s biggest challenge – dealing with players,” the source said.

Given that specifics of the selection procedure for the white-ball tour of Sri Lanka were disclosed in the paper, it appears that Gambhir has already heard him. Gambhir was present at the selection meeting, which was led by BCCI chief selector Ajit Agarkar. India is targeting both the 2026 T20 World Cup and the Champions Trophy for the following year. However, instead of imposing his ideas on the committee, the latter let the selectors run the show. His only engagement involved talking to Hardik Pandya about his role in the Indian team going forward and that he need to be available for every match that India plays.

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