Aakash Chopra On Gambhir: Former Indian cricketer Aakash Chopra praised head coach Gautam Gambhir after India clinched the series against New Zealand under the captaincy of Suryakumar Yadav. In the first three T20Is only, India sealed the series by a 3-0 lead before they lost the fourth T20I by 50 runs.
Since Gautam Gambhir was appointed as the head coach of the team, India marked the ninth consecutive T20I series win. Despite failures in ODIs and Tests, India continued to dominate in the T20Is.
Aakash Chopra On Gambhir
In a recent video shared by Chopra, he stated that Gambhir deserves full credit for India’s success in the shortest format of the game, especially when he gets a lot of criticism.
He said,
“Gautam Gambhir deserves credit. When we don’t hesitate to criticize, then why hesitate to praise? I’m talking about India’s T20 batting approach. That approach is not the future—it’s the present. We understood it late. The formula was the same: 11 players, 20 overs, and this is what you can achieve if you play fearlessly. India wasn’t able to do it before.”
“Even now, ODI and T20I series take place together. New Zealand’s bowling unit hasn’t changed, but India’s approach has. The moment we started dominating and decimating, we broke the opposition’s resolve. Now they are saying even 300 might not be enough because this team is different.”
Chopra also stated that earlier the ODI and T20I squads overlapped, but now the cricketers who have an aggressive intent only play the T20 cricket.
He said,
“Gautam Gambhir did the work. Previously, the talk was about playing aggressively under Rohit Sharma. Rohit did play that way and walked the talk. Secondly, the T20I side used to overlap with the ODI team. A lot of overlap used to happen, and the approach was different.”
“Not everyone played aggressively. But the present side is a team of assassins and destroyers—whether it’s Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, or Rinku Singh.”
The fifth T20I between India and New Zealand will be played on January 31, Saturday, at the Greenfield International Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram.
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