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Gautam Gambhir is the new coach of India team in all formats, according to top BCCI sources. The board officials and Gambhir have reached an understanding that the Delhi southpaw will be appointed as the head coach of Team India and an announcement is due right after the Lok Sabha election results. Some other sources insisted that the big announcement could happen after the T20 World Cup. If that is the case, what was the hurry to advertise for the head coach?
“Gambhir is India’s next head coach, and the BCCI is working towards it,” a board official told CricBlogger. Sources also said that Ganbhir wanted a four-year contract instead of three-and-a-half years, but BCCI is deliberating over it,
Gambhir will take over from former Indian captain Rahul Dravid, who served the team for over two-and-a-half years. Sources also said that Gambhir would appoint his support staff and have a dialogue with BCCI bosses regarding the transition plan for the Indian team. It is given to understand that ‘team before self’ is going to a new mantra in Gambhir’s regime. This could also mean the start of the end of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Who knows?
Gambhir’s name came to the limelight after he played prominent roles while mentoring teams like Lucknow SuperGiants. The 2024 IPL triumph of KKR was the perfect icing on the cake and gave him the bargaining powers as a coach.
This was the same Gambhir, who after a dismal Test series, was accused of running away from an ODI bilateral series against England by a top board official. It left such a bad remark in his career that he couldn’t make a convincing comeback to the Indian team after that incident.
However, the reality of that incident was something other than what the board officials thought. Gambhi had a head injury playing spoilsport.
Thirteen years later, the same BCCI is seen wooing Gambhir after MS Dhoni, Ashish Nehra, and Stephen Fleming declined the offer. There was also a thing about Shah Rukh Khan’s connection with Gambhir as the mentor of KKR, but sources said that the concerned stakeholders are all being sorted.
Former coach Ravi Shastri loved commentary but had to leave the commentary box to coach India for nearly seven years for the sake of the nation. Gambhir is doing the same. His cricket calling is so strong that he even let go of his political post, where he was hard-pressed for time.
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