Former India cricketer turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has applauded Gautam Gambhir for revolutionising the team’s T20I batting. Chopra also said that people shouldn’t hesitate to praise the coach for his good work, even when criticism was strong during the struggles as well.
Speaking in a video uploaded on X, Chopra said: “Gautam Gambhir deserves credit. When we don’t hesitate to criticise, then why hesitate to praise. I’m talking about India’s T20 batting approach. That approach is not the future, it’s reality. We have understood it late. The formula was the same. There are 11 players and 20 overs and this is what you can achieve if played fearlessly. India weren’t able to do it before.”
“Even now, ODI and T20I series takes place. New Zealand’s bowling unit hasn’t changed but India’s approach changed. The moment we started dominating and decimating, we broke the opposition’s resolve. Now they are saying, even 300 might not be enough because this team is different,” he stated.
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Aakash Chopra also recalled how India’s ODI and T20I teams overlapped, and players did not play aggressively as well. He added that criticism is justified for Team India’s struggles in Tests and ODIs, but they deserve recognition for T20Is as well.
“Gautam Gambhir did the work. Previously, the talk was to play aggressively under Rohit Sharma. Rohit did play that way and walked the talk. Secondly, the T20I side was overlapping the ODI team. A lot of overlap used to happen and the approach was different. Not everyone played aggressively. But the present side is a team of assassins and of destroyers. Whether it’s Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube or Rinku Singh,” he said.
“Except for Pandya, no one is part of the ODI team. Everyone plays T20Is, so they play fearlessly. That’s where Gambhir deserves a lot of credit. The criticism was right. India lost BGT, lost at home to New Zealand and South Africa. The graph went down in ODI cricket too and the criticism is right even there. But Gambhir is also responsible for the revolution and transformation of T20 cricket and deserves credit equally. He has empowered everyone and allowed everyone to be this kind of player. That’s why it looks like the word possible is visible in impossible when this team plays and that’s why Gambhir deserves credit,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
