Why the star-obsessed Indian cricket needs commoner coach Gautam Gambhir?

Back in 2012, Kolkata Knight Riders, like this season, was in Chennai for their first IPL final. On the eve of meeting defending champions CSK in their den, Gautam Gambhir, the coach now and captain then, needed to take one very difficult call. He was keen to have Manvindra Bisla as his opening partner but for that he needed to keep Brendon McCullum out. Who drops the original Bazballer, IPL’s first brand ambassador for an uncapped out-of-form 20-something Jat boy from Hisar for the final? Well, Gambhir does.

It wasn’t a popular decision, even McCullum had expectedly sulked. Opinions and the mood would change by late evening when Bisla was in the middle of the innings of his life. Years later, Bisla, now a part of IPL’s Haryanvi commentary panel, still gets asked about his match-winning 48-ball 89 which had five sixes that helped KKR win the first title. Others in the box, Indian and foreign TV pundits, while hyping the play-off frenzy, have been talking about Gambhir’s courage to treat stars as commoners and how this very non-Indian mindset has played a role in making KKR great again. He has also done something more significant. Read on.

Some years back, historian Ramachandra Guha, while quitting the court-appointed Committee of Administrators that temporarily governed BCCI, had written a scathing resignation letter. Probably the first outsider to get a peek into the inner workings of the Indian board, Guha had mentioned how “superstar syndrome had distorted the system”. He had also questioned how Dhoni despite his Test retirement got a Grade A contract and even hinted at the veto that senior players (read Virat Kohli), enjoyed in deciding coach Anil Kumble’s coaching tenure.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s Virat Kohli hugs Kolkata Knight Riders’ mentor Gautam Gambhir after KKR won the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 T20 cricket match, at M Chinnaswamy Stadium, in Bengaluru, Friday, March 29, 2024. (PTI Photo)

Not exactly on these issues but Gambhir too has been a committed crusader relentlessly red-flagging Indian cricket’s ever-growing cult of personality. He keeps saying how he doesn’t understand why Dhoni gets all the due for finishing the 2011 World Cup final and why Zaheer Khan who started it all hardly gets talked about. Even while being on the commentary panel, he has been against the broadcaster’s TRP-driven, star-obsessed 24×7 hagiographical programming.

A couple of years back, at the The Indian Express Idea Exchange Q&A, Gambhir was asked if TV’s unflinching focus on only Dhoni and Kohli choked the pipeline that produces stars. “India needs to come out of this hero worship. Whether it’s Indian cricket, whether it’s politics, whether it’s Delhi cricket. We have to stop worshipping heroes. The only thing that we need to worship is Indian cricket, or for that matter Delhi or India,” he said.

Gambhir hasn’t yet applied for the post of India coach and those close to him say that he hasn’t even got any feelers from BCCI. Not that Indian cricket is bothered by such boring formalities when it comes to making important appointments. Like all spectacular IPL success stories, the miraculous transformation of Kolkata Knight Riders under Gambhir too could well have the usual ending – call to be the coach of the Indian team.

Transformative change

In case Gambhir does get the top job, Indian cricket would possibly be in for interesting times and probably a transformative change. India hasn’t had a Gambhir-like coach ever. At 42, he could be India’s youngest coach and the first to have successfully played and triumphantly strategized T20 cricket. Like his many predecessors – Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, Ravi Shastri, Kapil Dev – he has neither been an India captain nor a superstar. He wasn’t among the Fab Four, he didn’t win an Audi or lead a World Cup winning team.

Kolkata: Kolkata Knight Riders coach Chandrakant Pandit and mentor Gautam Gambhir during a training session ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 cricket tournament, at Eden Gardens in Kolkata, Tuesday, March 19, 2024. (PTI Photo/Swapan Mahapatra)

Gambhir is no royalty but a cricketing plebeian with leadership traits and results to show. He might not be high on India’s all-time run-getters list but India knows he could be trusted on a big day. 98 in 2011 World Cup, 75 in World T20 2007 – in both winning finals he scored the most, he didn’t have the stage-fright. Unlike cricketers of this generation, he wasn’t in the habit of messing up big ICC games.

But what about those who perceive him as a bitter ex-cricketer who resents the fame of others. Tracing Gambhir’s journey will help to understand him better. Born in Delhi, his initiation into cricket was with the notoriously corrupt DDCA, where one slip-up would mean stagnation as a club cricketer for life. Consistent runs at age-group cricket first got him a call for u-16 and u-19 World Cup camps. But at both times he narrowly missed out on being in teams that were crowned world champions. On his first-class debut, he was a non-Sonnet Club member in a dressing room that was crowded by players from Delhi’s most influential club.

His struggle to get into the Indian team was epic. He kept getting picked and dropped. Once he cemented his place in the national side, he carved a corner for himself. He wasn’t part of any cliques. In his playing days, one could never see him snuggling up to the seniors at the nets or being the hanger-on to their group in the evenings. Having lived the life of a foot-soilder, Gambhir understands the psyche and importance of the team’s rank and file. Gambhir had his own small group. Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Ishant Sharma, Munaf Patel and later a young Virat Kohli – they were like a house on fire when together.

Going by their public spats on cricket fields, can Gambhir and Kohli be part of the same team now? They said the same about Rohit and Kohli some time back but they remain the team’s two main pillars. In Indian cricket, change of power means change of equations. In Delhi, those who know them say, they go back a long way and the on-field confrontations that horrify the world are everyday happenings at Kotla. Most fights on the field end with a shared plate of chhole bhature. A dash of Gambhir to this talented side could well be Team India’s missing secret sauce. With him India has a chance to make cricket a team sport again.

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