The Indian team is currently gearing up for their title defence in the upcoming T20 World Cup 2026. However, ahead of the ICC event, former India skipper Rohit Sharma who led India to the title in the T20 World Cup 2024, has issued a word of caution for the Gautam Gambhir-led Indian coaching management.
Under Gambhir, the India squad has witnessed constant tinkering in the lineup, be it in the rotation of players or in their positions. Echoing on the same lines, Rohit Sharma drew parallels from his captaincy days and said that he wouldn’t make changes in the squad as easily and only when it was only required.
Speaking on Star Sports, Rohit Sharma said, “Mera humesha se ye manna tha ki aise changes main tabhi karunga jab mujhe genuinely lagega mujhe zarurat hain. [I always believed that I will make changes only if I genuinely feel that it’s absolutely needed]. Because I don’t want to change unnecessarily to try and disrupt what’s not broken. Ye jo team hain ye kafi time se eksath khela hain. [This team has been playing together for a long time]. The most important thing for team India would just be to identify their playing XI and stick to it.”
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Looking back at some of Gambhir’s calls in the longest format, there’s a whole list of players picked and then prematurely benched from the Test squad. Names like Sarfaraz Khan, Karun Nair, Devdutt Padikkal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Narayan Jagadeesan, Anshul Kamboj, Arshdeep Singh, and Akash Deep have all but been given a very little rope to prove themselves. Furthermore, there are players like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin, all of whom announced Test retirements in a rather shocking manner.
Someone like Sai Sudharsan has been in and out of the Test side while one player who has constantly been tried out in different positions is Washington Sundar. In the last five tests in England and India, he batted at eight, five, eight, nine, seven, three, three, eight, eight.
The same has happened in white-ball cricket too where players like Axar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy, Sanju Samson and Arshdeep have faced a similar fate.
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