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The role of India’s support staff has come under great scrutiny since the home whitewash against New Zealand and the 3-1 series defeat to Australia.
India have lost five of their last seven Tests under Gautam Gambhir. (BCCI Photo)
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is reportedly considering adding a new coach to the Indian men’s international team in the wake of the recent slump in performances in Test cricket.
According to Cricbuzz, the position of the batting coach is being looked at strongly because stakeholders in the board and the team management feel there’s a need to ‘strengthen’ Gautam Gambhir’s support staff.
The report said that the issue was discussed in the BCCI’s review meeting of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy on January 11. However, it added that it was uncertain if the BCCI would act on these ideas and go ahead with such an appointment.
India’s coaching staff has head coach Gambhir, bowling coach Morne Morkel, assistant coach Abhishek Nayar, assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate and fielding coach T Dilip. Only Dilip was retained as a coach from the previous setup.
Morkel worked with Gambhir at Lucknow Super Giants while Nayar and ten Doeschate were the batting and fielding coaches, respectively, when the former India captain was at Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) last year. All three were said to be Gambhir’s first choice when he was made the head coach.
The role of the batting coach has come under great scrutiny in Tests. India has won just three of their last ten red-ball internationals. They were whitewashed by New Zealand at home when the host batters looked much worse against spin than their Kiwi counterparts before being outplayed 3-1 in Australia.
Down Under, Virat Kohli’s inability to rectify his outside-off-stump issue and other batters’ muddled game plans had increased the criticism.
“What was the coaching staff doing? Batting coach?” former India captain Sunil Gavaskar told Star Sports during the series. “Against New Zealand, India were bowled out for 46. In the remaining matches, they were not able to do well, and they lost the series. There was no character in the batting order. In Australia too, India lacked solidity in the batting order.”
“We have to ask questions: ‘Brothers, what did you do? Why is there no improvement?’ If you tell me the bowling was unplayable (in both series) and then our batters were not able to stand up to it, then it’s okay. Even the best players can’t face unplayable bowling. But it was not the case. Tell me, what have you done?” he questioned.
India’s next Test assignment is a tour of England in June.
