Here is the full transcript of the interview with Gautam Gambhir
Q: Gautam bhai, we have seen the team play aggressively since you joined. What was your approach to white ball cricket, especially T20s?
Gautam Gambhir: It was very simple. High risk, high reward. In 120 balls or even 240 balls you have to create the maximum possible impact. Because you don’t really have a chance to go back. Ultimately, you cannot win the T20 format by being humbled. You cannot dominate if you play carefully. You cannot dominate if you stay in your shell.
As I said yesterday in the press conference, the difference between winning and losing is often how you fire when you approach milestones. If you start thinking about personal milestones, you may end up scoring 15-20 points less. And those 15-20 runs I think can be the difference between winning the World Cup and losing it.
Q: Before the World Cup, Sanju did not score in the New Zealand series when Ishan was in form. Was it a problem and how did you plan the team?
Gautam Gambhir: You see, it never happens that every player in the team is in form. This has never happened to any team. You can never go to the World Cup with every player in top form. There will always be players in form and some out of form. If you watched the New Zealand series, Sanju didn’t score.
But the way he batted in the World Cup, I think it’s every cricketer’s dream. And in fact, it was the other way around for Abhishek Sharma. That is the nature of the T20 format. People judge players by the number of points they score, but team management judges them by the impact they create.
Q: You support your players even when they are not in form like Abhishek. Do you think confidence is key to their performance?
Gautam Gambhir: Look, you pick players based on trust and belief, not hope. If you pick someone based on trust and faith, you can’t take it after four or five games. But if you choose someone only for hope, then you can lose that hope very quickly. Be it Abhishek or any of the 15 players in that dressing room, we believe in all of them. Whenever they get an opportunity at any stage of the competition, they deliver for the team. The most important thing for this team was to put the team before themselves.
People outside can only watch Abhishek’s runs. But if you ask me as a coach, there has never been a match where Abhishek has scored anything like 20 runs off 20 balls. Shifts like that hurt the team more than trying to play aggressively. So the simple message for him was: if you’re not scoring goals, go into the next game and play even more aggressively instead of going into your shell.
That ideology has changed a lot and that’s why we’ve started seeing scores like 250 or even 350. And I hope that ideology continues in the future – not just in T20 cricket but hopefully in the 50-over format as well.
Q: You won the World Cup as a player and now as a coach you have lifted this trophy as well. What is more special — winning as a player or winning as a coach?
Gautam Gambhir: Growing up, you always dream of winning the World Cup as a player. As a coach, I never imagined that I would get the opportunity to become India’s head coach, let alone become a World Cup-winning coach. But as a coach, it’s actually more satisfying. Because once the match starts, there is very little in your hands. Your players make you look good and they make you look bad. As a player, you can control your performance.
You can control your runs and your contribution on the field. But once the match started at 7pm yesterday, not much was under control. That’s why I’ve always said as a player that a coach or captain is only as good as his team. And today as a coach I say the same thing. If coaches or captains could win games on their own, we would never have lost the World Cup.
Your team wins matches for you. Your team loses games for you. Your team makes you look good, and your team can make you look bad. All you can do is create a safe environment, support the players and have trust and confidence in them. Then, once the game starts, it’s up to the players to do the work.
Q: Despite the criticism of red-ball cricket, India have won several white-ball trophies. Do you think the critics now see that the team is moving in the right direction?
Gautam Gambhir: First of all, my responsibility is to the 30 people sitting in that dressing room. My responsibility is not to social media or so called experts. I am the coach of the Indian team, not the expert coach. And secondly you mentioned red ball cricket. If people don’t see the transition happening, then it’s not my fault.
