Indian Head Coach Gautam Gambhir. (FILE Photo)A day after an exclusive report in The Indian Express about Gautam Gambhir giving a stern talk to the Indian cricketers after the loss at Melbourne, the head coach admitted that “honest communication” was had with the team.
This newspaper had reported that Gambhir had told the team he has had enough with the approach, and that now he would “decide” how they would play, and those who don’t toe the line would be given a “thank you”. And how “natural game” is all well and good but the players have to put “team interest” first and play as per the situation.
In Thursday’s pre-match press conference, Gambhir was asked a specific question about what was reported in the newspaper: ‘There have been reports about the stern chat you had with the team. Can you give us an insight of what your main message was to the group following Melbourne?’
“Those are just reports. That’s not the truth,” Gambhir started before saying that he did have a word with the team. “There are some honest words. And honesty is very important. Honesty is extremely important if you want to probably go on and achieve some great things.”
When he was asked about the balance between natural game and playing according to the situation, Gambhir would reiterate what was reported in the newspaper: “It’s a team sport and you’ve got to play what the team needs you to do. That’s as simple as it can get. People can play the natural game, but still, in a team sport, individuals only contribute. It’s the team, if you need to play in a certain way, I think you’ve got to do it.”
The head coach would also admit that the Indian team has shown a “lack of fight” at times in the series that they trail 1-2 going into the final Test at Sydney on Friday.
“We’ve got to keep fighting and that’s why we love, every one of us love watching, playing, being part of Test cricket. I know we got to fight it out. And that’s probably one area where we’ve lacked in this series.”
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