IND vs SA: Indian cricket has become Gautam Gambhir’s personal Kamasutra of experimental positions, never-ending adjustments, and zero satisfaction due to his obsession with constant change. The outcome? Innovation cloaked in confusion. Every page of the Kamasutra would discuss a different position for Indian batters if it were written by Gautam Gambhir.
Gambhir vs Traditional Wisdom
Gambhir appears to be addicted to variety and the change that results from it. He frequently switches players, positions, and combinations to liven things up. He would be the clear winner if team boardroom action were a sport. Sadly, his fantasies—fantasy disguised as strategy that results in excruciating orgies—are not producing the desired happy ending.
After India’s first innings collapse in the second Test match against South Africa, there was a joke that Kuldeep Yadav might be India’s next number three because of his long vigil and strong defensive style.
Gambhir’s transformation of Indian batting into a joke served as the inspiration for the joke. Since he took over, the team has resembled a carousel of players, spinning so quickly that even the most experienced cricket players are unable to settle into a rhythm. Nearly every batter, with the exception of Yashaswi Jaiswal, has been moved up and down the order based on—what?
Performance? Sai Sudarshan is dropped after scoring 87 and 39 at number three. Washington Sundar, his replacement and the Irfan Pathan of the Gambhir era, scores the highest number of runs (29 and 31) among Indians against South Africa in the first Test before being demoted. Sudarshan took his place. Thus, Gambhir’s Squid Game goes on.
In Gambhir’s world, stability is seldom accepted as a stranger. Batters accustomed to their natural spots are thrust into new roles, not as a challenge but as a routine disruption born out of impatience or a compulsive desire to experiment.
This game of impatience has a high death toll. Sarfaraz Khan, Karun Nair, Devdutt Padikkal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Narayan Jagadeesan, Anshul Kamboj, Arshdeep Singh, and Akash Deep are a few players who were selected for the Test team but were later benched. The entire team has been eliminated when you include the retired players, such as Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Ravichandran Ashwin.
Players like Axar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy, Sanju Samson, and Arshdeep appear and disappear like cameos in a Farah Khan song during ODIs and T20Is. Let’s just say Indian cricket, Om Shaanti.
BS Hits Fan: Bullheaded Leadership
After retiring from Indian cricket, elite players become commentators, mediocre players, with rare exceptions, become coaches, and the remaining players become selectors. Entrepreneurs as team owners and politicians as administrators are at the top of this pyramid.
The issue with this arrangement is that, aside from the commentary box, practically every individual in this ecosystem is a misfit—a result of the flawed system rather than their own merit. And this is the main issue.
The labharthis of the defective system attempt too many experiments in an attempt to demonstrate their qualifications and defend their nomination. At this point, the cluttered minds start to lose patience with positions and combinations, such as left-right, four all-rounders, and three keepers.
Wiser people occasionally learn from their mistakes, recognizing the high cost of ego and the pointlessness of their fantasies. However, Gambhir doesn’t appear to be one of them; he is committed to using the same errors to achieve a different outcome.
The Damage Over Time
The fan has already felt the short-term effects of this stubborn insistence on treating batting positions and specialists as unimportant. After decades of dominance, India is now on the verge of a second home whitewash in the last three series, which is unimaginable. In the meantime, pitches that have become open langars continue to be a feast for opposing bowlers.
However, the long-term effects will soon become apparent. The bodies of bowlers, the minds of batters, and the spirit of Indian Test cricket are all being destroyed by Gambhir’s alleged tactics. Specialists are suffering because of his insistence on acquiring all-rounders, who are hardly ever used as bowlers. Mohammad Siraj and Jaspreet Bumrah are being forced to work in Indian conditions, on the same pitches where India used pacers to simply dull the new ball. The future of our great fast bowlers is in jeopardy unless Gambhir modifies his “I’ll win the Derby with mules” stance.
The Encore Chappell? Not at all
The parallels with Greg Chappell’s time as Indian coach have been noted by numerous detractors and supporters.
Chappell, a former captain of Australia who coached India from 2005 to 2007, also brought a disruptive passion for change, but his approach and outcomes were different. Additionally, he experimented with batting orders, removing Sachin Tendulkar from the opening position and pushing Pathan as a batsman, which ultimately destroyed his bowling. Public arguments resulted from his autocratic, “my way or the highway” style, particularly with senior players and captain Sourav Ganguly.
Gambhir, on the other hand, has an unrestricted run with hardly any complaints from the dressing room or seniors. Gambhir is therefore unable to conceal his flaws in the dressing room, in contrast to Chappell. The main reason his experiments have failed is because he has made the Indian team into a carousel and is treating conventional wisdom the same way Geoffrey Boycott treated Gambhir’s batting as garbage.
Put Yourself in Pain
Gambhir’s version of the Kamasutra appears to be focused on confusion for pain, whereas the original was about exploring positions for pleasure. With every game, his players change roles and twist and turn, only to discover that there is no rhythm, no sync, and most definitely no satisfaction.
Therefore, Indian cricket is not in a state of post-match bliss but rather in an uncomfortable silence as it considers the next position it will be forced into.