Team India head coach Gautam Gambhir blamed the rise of T20 cricket for the poor defence of Indian batters as well. Notably, the strong Indian batting lineup failed to do well in the second Test against New Zealand at Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune as the visitors won the match by 113 runs and handed India their first series defeat at home since 2012 as well.

Recently, Gautam Gambhir also opened up on Team India’s glaring weakness against spin in recent times and blamed T20 cricket for their poor defence while playing against spin. However, the India head coach stressed the importance of good defence and again said that the team is working towards it and the results will follow in future as well.

“The more the T20 cricket is played (around the world), the more the people will struggle in defending. But the most successful players irrespective of the formats always had strong defence. We need to keep telling people the importance of defence and we are working hard on it and we will see results in future,” said Gambhir in the pre-match press conference.

“Sometimes you’re so used to muscling the ball that you end up forgetting the soft hands which probably used to happen eight or 10 years back. A complete cricketer is a cricketer who plays T20 format and Test cricket successfully. He can adapt his game.”But you will see probably going forward in future, we’ll have the same issues with a lot of other teams as well because the more the T20 cricket is played, the lesser people will start defending,” he concluded.