Former India captain Kapil Dev questioned Team India head coach Gautam Gambhir’s role as a coach and believes the latter should be more of a player-manager as well. However, Gambhir has come under massive scrutiny from fans and pundits after a series of poor results in the Test format as well.

When talking about Gambhir’s role as head coach, Kapil Dev said at the Indian Chamber of Commerce ICC Centenary Session (via India Today): “Today that word called a coach ‘coach’ is a very common word today. Gautam Gambhir can’t be a coach. He can be a manager of the team. When you say coach, coach is where I learn in school and college. Those were the people, my coach there. They can manage me. How can you be a coach when they have given a name to let’s say anybody a leg spinner? How can Gautam be a coach to a leg spinner or to the wicket-keeper?”

“I think you have to manage. That’s more important. As a manager, you give them encouragement to say you can do it, because when you become a manager, the young boys look up to you,” he shared again.

However, Kapil Dev further said that the head coach and captain’s role is to provide comfort to all the players who are out of form or short of confidence as well.

“How can my manager or captain can give me that comfort and that’s what the manager and captain’s job is – to give comfort to the team and always say ‘you can do better’. That’s the way I look at it. I think you have to give comfort to the people who are not playing well. If somebody made a hundred I don’t want to have a drink and dinner with him,” he shared.

“There are a lot of people there As a captain I would like to have a drink with people or I like to have a dinner with people who are not performing. You need to give them the confidence and that’s what happens. So I think it’s very important as a captain and your role is not only your performance, it is also about putting the team together,” Kapil Dev concluded.