T20 is a format which Gambhir always understood like the back of his palm and even in the coming days, this is the format where one would see him excel as a coach.
Ahmedabad: Known for his deadpan expressions on and off the field, Gautam Gambhir finally managed a smile on Sunday night. India’s head coach had just bagged a third straight trophy which put him high on the coaching pedestal.
The 2025 Champions Trophy followed by Asia Cup the same year and now the T20 World Cup have indeed brought out emotions in the 44-year-old. However, he chose to remain humble in his moment of honour. “The players have made me a winner. I have been saying for a long time that you are as good a coach or captain as your team, so I think credit should go to players for the professionalism and bravery with which they played this tournament,” he told reporters after the one-sided final at Narendra Modi Stadium.
Gambhir, credited for injecting a different brand of cricket into the Indian team, said courage was the key. “The most important thing in this T20 format was that we didn’t want to be afraid of losing. Myself and the captain always believe that high risk, high reward is very important in this format,” he said.
“I think Surya has made my life a lot easier in this format. He’s a phenomenal leader. I think my simple philosophy with Surya has always been that milestones don’t matter, trophies do. You can see what Sanju did in the last three games — 97 not out, 89, 89. Imagine if he would have been playing for a milestone, probably we wouldn’t have got 250,” he pointed out.
“The only thing we spoke about in the dressing room was how we could give ourselves the best chance to win this World Cup. It was how we react when a batter is close to 100. If someone is batting on 94, does he have the courage to go and get 100 the next ball, rather than thinking about getting three in three or four balls? The only way you could do it is when you’re putting the team ahead of your own self and I think the guys have done that brilliantly,” he added.
The coach also had high praise for Player of the Tournament Sanju Samson. “To come up with good performances three-in-a-row, especially after coming back from the kind of (lack of) form that he was in, takes so much of character and courage, where you realise maybe your career is on the line,” he said, adding, “You need to be a special talent to be making a comeback like that and playing those sort of innings with such strike rate or flamboyance. Hopefully he can kick off from here and achieve greatly.”
Gambhir also relished his personal achievement of winning an ICC trophy as a player as well as coach. “I can’t ask for more,” he said, adding “I played one World Cup (50-over format in 2011) at home, which we ended up winning; now, I’ve got this one as coach in my first event at home.”
Gambhir also acknowledged the work of his predecessor Rahul Dravid and BCCI’s Centre of Excellence (COE) chief VVS Laxman. “I should dedicate this trophy to Rahul bhai and then to Laxman. I have to thank Rahul bhai for everything he’s done during his tenure to keep Indian cricket in such good shape. Thanks also to Laxman for unconditionally doing so much behind the scenes, because COE remains the pipeline for Indian cricket. I should thank Ajit Agarkar (chairman of the senior selection committee) too, for working honestly despite getting a lot of flak. Last but not the least, I have to thank Jay Shah (former BCCI secretary and current ICC chairman) for trusting me because when I was given this job, I had no experience of being the head coach of any franchise or any team. I think with these guys around, Indian cricket is in very, very safe hands,” he said.
