The players who have played with Gautam Gambhir will now play under his coaching. Virat Kohli has also been their captain. Gambhir was with Rohit Sharma in the 2007 T20 World Cup and with Virat in the 2011 World Cup

What is special about Gautam Gambhir? (PC-PTI)

Gautam Gambhir has become the coach of Team India at the age of just 42. His first assignment as a coach is starting in Sri Lanka from 27 July. Gautam Gambhir has become the coach but we have to understand how he became the coach? What were the reasons that went in his favour? At present, he is probably the youngest coach among the world's big cricket teams. For example - Pakistan's head coach Jason Gillespie is 49 years old. The team's other coach Gary Kirsten is 56 years old. England's coach Brendon McCullum is also a few days older than Gautam Gambhir. New Zealand's coach Gary Stead is 52 years old. Australia's coach Andrew McDonald is 43 years old. Earlier, Indian team's coach Rahul Dravid was also above fifty.

Understand it this way that Gautam Gambhir is now the coach of the same players with whom he was playing about eight years ago. About half a dozen players from the last match that Gautam Gambhir played in November 2016 are still members of Team India. Let's start with Rohit Sharma, Rohit and Gambhir were part of the team that won the T20 World Cup in 2007. After this comes Virat Kohli's name. Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir had a very important partnership in the 2011 World Cup. Apart from this, there are names like R Ashwin, Mohammad Shami, Ravindra Jadeja who are regular part of the Indian Test team. Who will now play under Gautam Gambhir's coaching.

After all, what is so special about Gautam Gambhir?

A player can have three dimensions. He can be a bowler or a batsman, then he can be a captain and finally he can do coaching. Now let's evaluate Gautam Gambhir on these three dimensions. Everything is 'crystal clear' i.e. it is visible very clearly. First of all, let's come to batting. Leave aside his nearly ten thousand runs and 20 centuries in international cricket. Only two innings of Gambhir are recorded in Indian cricket history. In the 2007 T20 World Cup final, he scored the highest 75 runs for India. In the 2011 World Cup final, he played the highest innings of 97 runs. India won the T20 World Cup in 2007 and the World Cup in 2011.

Gautam Gambhir has been a leader

After this, let's talk about the role of captaincy. He got very few opportunities to captain Team India but he was the captain in franchise cricket. He was made the captain by Kolkata Knight Riders. Which was counted among the biggest teams in the history of IPL. King Khan's name was associated with the team. Many big names like Sourav Ganguly, Brendon McCullum, Chris Gayle were with the team but victory was not coming their way. In 2008, Kolkata was at the sixth position. In 2009, it was the last placed team. In 2010 too, the team was at the sixth position. In 2011, Gambhir joined the Kolkata team as captain. This was the first year when the Kolkata team reached the playoffs. After this, for the first time, it also got a chance to play in the Champions League.

In 2012 and 2014, Kolkata team became champion under the captaincy of Gautam Gambhir. That is, Gautam Gambhir showed his strength in the second role as well. Now let's talk about the third role. Here too the story is very clear. Gautam Gambhir joined the Lucknow team as a mentor. Under him, the Lucknow team qualified for the playoffs in the very first year. In 2024, Gambhir returned with the Kolkata team and Kolkata won the title. Kolkata was the most consistent team in the entire tournament. There are very few names in the game of cricket who have been successful in all these three roles.

Gambhir will be seen in the role of a friend more than a coach

Before leaving for Sri Lanka, Gautam Gambhir said that keeping the players happy is his priority. Victory also comes in a happy dressing room. The message of both these statements is very clear that Gambhir is not going to complicate things. He knows that if he remains a friend of the players, the results will come automatically. He has also said about Virat that both of them 'exchange' messages with each other. Gambhir is praising Virat a lot.

Gambhir needs Virat

Gambhir knows very well that his career will also be judged by victory and Virat is necessary for victory. It also has to be understood that if the relationship between these two was so bad, then Gambhir would probably not have taken up this responsibility. He was a good mentor with the Kolkata team and there is no need to tell about his relationship with Shahrukh Khan. Gambhir is of that temperament that if any player of his team has some 'quarrel' with the opposing team, then he will also go along and fight. He is a 'team-man'. Even when he clashed with Virat, he clashed for Naveen Ul Haq. For him, the team comes before the player. In the 2024 IPL, he gave less opportunities to Rinku Singh but in the end Rinku had the trophy in his hands.

Gambhir also has the example of Greg Chappell and Gary Kirsten in front of him. When Greg Chappell used the gun, he was remembered only for controversies. Whereas Gary Kirsten, like a music director, gave each player some role and left them free and became a successful coach. This is the beginning of an era in Indian cricket where Gautam will not be that 'serious'.