Hamilton: India head coach Gautam Gambhir heaped praise on captain Shreyas Iyer and also the team for winning the T20I series against New Zealand by 3-2.
India took an unassailable 3-0 lead after the first three matches, and although they lost the next two games, they registered stellar wins on the back of a busy T20 season.
India had their first-choice bowling attack only on a handful of occasions since the T20 World Cup 2026, as T20Is are not in much focus now with the ODI World Cup and a potential WTC championship final ahead.
India’s bowling was depleted in the New Zealand series in the absence of Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Harshit Rana and Washington Sundar. Despite this, India managed to put up strong performances and ended up winning the series.
Speaking after the fifth T20I, which India lost by seven wickets, coach Gambhir heaped praise on Shreyas for leading the team home. “Look, when he took over (Shreyas), he took over a very successful team. A team that had won the T20 World Cup and had not lost a T20 series in two years. We had challenging opposition after the World Cup.
“And more importantly, we had given a lot of new guys that opportunity as well. We did lack a lot of experience, especially when you tour places like England and New Zealand,” Gambhir said in the post-match press conference on Sunday.
“But this is a great opportunity as well; if you start thinking of building for the next World Cup, you’ve got to give young players the opportunity and try and develop them being on the road as well. Because you see the amount of experience that we had during the World Cup and after that, the kind of experience we had in a bowling lineup. It is always challenging.
“So, I thought that Shreyas has done a fabulous job with so much inexperience in the bowling lineup because as a captain, you’re only as good as how your bowlers or your batters perform. And especially with an inexperienced attack, I think he’s done a phenomenal job,” he added.
Gambhir also heaped praise on the team for coming off after a very short turnaround from India, where they played a five-match T20I series against the West Indies, which ended on October 17. They were on the field for the first of the five T20Is against New Zealand on October 22 and had hardly any time to prepare for the assignment.
“It’s an incredible effort, because what? The boys got only one day to prepare. They arrived on the 20th, we practised on the 21st, different conditions, different weather conditions, different dimensions, playing against a quality side like New Zealand in their own backyard with the amount of experience they had in T20 cricket, plus most of the boys touring New Zealand for the first time. So, I think boys can be extremely, extremely proud of their efforts, especially when you hardly got any time to prepare,” he said.
He also praised the team’s aggressive batting style, which has made them among the trendsetters in the format. “In India, we only look at the results; we don’t look at anything else. Look, my job is to prepare the players in the best way possible. What knowledge can I share with them? Because I have played in these conditions, I have played in New Zealand as well.
“So, it was important for me to share all that information, try to keep them in a good space, and try to make them show that they are absolutely aggressive. Because we have played the same type of cricket for the past two and a half years. That high risk, high reward.
“Sometimes we will lose matches, sometimes we will lose one-sided matches. We will lose in the future as well, but our ideology, our philosophy will not change. Because the success we have had for the past two years is because of this philosophy.
“And we will accept it. Sometimes you will lose a match with 100 runs, but sometimes you will chase 150 runs in 10 overs. We want to play that kind of, that brand of cricket, irrespective of whether we are playing in England, Australia or in India,” he added.
(IANS)
