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Brendon McCullum has thrown his weight behind under-fire Gautam Gambhir ahead of the India-England T20I series.
Gautam Gambhir.
England’s new white-ball head coach Brendon McCullum has backed his Indian counterpart Gautam Gambhir amid a wave of scrutiny over his coaching credentials. McCullum, who played with Gambhir at Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), called him a ‘really strong leader of men’ who can utilize India’s full potential.
Since Gambhir has joined skipper Rohit Sharma as India’s head coach, the team has lost an ODI series against Sri Lanka and six of the ten Tests. The team’s T20 results in this phase have been much better, though, with clinical series wins over South Africa, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.
“What I will say about Gautam Gambhir is I’ve worked with him before and he’s an outstanding leader,” McCullum said in a press conference in Kolkata on Monday. “He’s a really strong leader of men and in the time that he’s had in any sort of leadership positions which he’s held previously, he’s been able to excel I’m sure.”
“He’s only just sort of got underway with this team, but there’s no doubt that he’ll get the best out of the talent that he’s got, and we’ve got to find a way to be able to counter that with our own style,” he added.
McCullum and Gambhir have a common Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) connection. The former was KKR’s head coach and his impressive style earned him England’s red-ball coach job; good work here has earned him the white-ball gig, too. The five T20Is and three ODIs against India are his first in the job.
Gambhir, meanwhile, got the role across formats for India after winning IPL 2024 with KKR as the team mentor.
“I don’t really know, sometimes I don’t even know if coach is the right word to be honest,” McCullum said, speaking about his approach. “I think everyone does things really differently, and everyone’s approaches are very unique and from how I try and operate, I think it’s probably less of a coach and try and make sure that the environment is a happy and enjoyable environment where you guys feel as if they can push their talents and push themselves towards the uncomfortable situations and know that there’s still going to be that support and that care there afterward and be encouraged to go again towards those.”
“Other coaches are very different, they like to run quite structured, quite technical. Other coaches are probably a bit more regimented in the way that they go about things, but I guess it’s really different,” he added.
