By Admin 
Team India’s head coach Gautam Gambhir is surrounded by criticism these days. After becoming the coach in July last year, while he led the team to win the Champions Trophy and Asia Cup, India’s performance in Test cricket has been continuously declining. Recently, the 2-0 clean sweep defeat against South Africa brought Gambhir into the center of questions. Earlier, New Zealand had also defeated India 3-0. In the history of Indian cricket, there have been clean sweeps in home Test series only three times and two of these were during Gambhir’s tenure.
But is Gambhir really the only one responsible for this defeat? Former Indian coach and veteran all-rounder Ravi Shastri completely disagrees with this thinking.
Ravi Shastri bluntly
During a conversation on Prabhat Khabar’s YouTube podcast, Shastri clearly said that the responsibility of defeat does not lie only with the coach. The entire team management and the players playing on the field have equal responsibility. Shastri said, “When the team loses, the players should also take responsibility. It is wrong to target just one person. This has happened to me too, so I am speaking from experience. Players should also feel hurt after the defeat.”
He said that unless the players realize that they have shown a disappointing performance, improvement is not possible.
Gambhir responsible for India’s test defeat?
Shastri further said, “It is a collective responsibility. You cannot hold any one person responsible. South Africa played as a team, no one player defeated India. Where were we able to play?”
Shastri’s statement has given a new twist to the debate whether Gambhir is being blamed excessively. Whereas the real problem lies in team combination, poor form and collective lack of decision making.
India’s home test performance
India’s first home Test clean sweep: 1999-2000, against South Africa
Second and third clean sweep: 2024-25, against New Zealand and South Africa