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Gautam Gambhir has become the head coach of Team India. BCCI announced its official information on Tuesday. Gambhir will now replace Rahul Dravid, who ended Team India’s ICC tournament with a drought 10 days ago.
Under Dravid’s coaching, India won the T20 World Cup by defeating South Africa in the final.
According to reports, Gambhir will remain India’s coach till December 2027. India will play 5 ICC tournaments during this period. Gambhir’s challenge is to make his team a champion. Apart from this, the focus will also be on his chemistry with senior players like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.
Let’s find out what are the 5 key challenges ahead of coach Gambhir.
Challenge-1: The real challenge is from September.. Gambhir’s tenure as the head coach for the Test series in New Zealand, England and Australia will begin with the tour of Sri Lanka. The first match of this tour will be played on July 27. Team India will play 3 ODIs and 3 T20Is in Sri Lanka. This tour will lay the foundation for Gambhir’s coaching career. The Sri Lanka tour ends on August 7. After that, Team India’s busy schedule will start from September 19. It is from here that the real challenges for Gambhir emerge.
Challenge-2: 5 ICC tournaments in next 3 years..
ICC will organize 5 tournaments from 2025 to 2027. Excluding the 2 WTC finals, these include 3 important limited overs tournaments. Champions Trophy in 2025, T20 World Cup in 2026 and ODI World Cup in 2027. Apart from the ICC tournaments, there will also be 2 Asia Cups during this period. In 2025, it is a challenge for India to win the Champions Trophy in Pakistan itself. India won 2 titles in the T-20 World Cup held in 2007 and 2024. The team is the current champion in this world cup. India and Sri Lanka are hosting the 2026 tournament. That means Gambhir has the challenge of winning India’s first T20 World Cup on home soil.
Challenge-3: Preparing the new T20 team..
After making India the 2024 T20 World Champions, three stalwarts of the team, captain Rohit Sharma, batsman Virat Kohli and all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja retired from the format. Youth team India was sent to tour Zimbabwe. The same is seen in the Sri Lankan tour. The challenge for Gambhir is to prepare India’s best team in this format till the 2026 World Cup. Besides, they also have to prepare replacements for Rohit, Kohli and Jadeja who will take charge of Team India in the next World Cup.
Challenge-4: Chemistry with senior players..
Three senior players have retired from the T-20 format. But these three players will continue to play in ODI and Test formats. While Rohit, Virat and Jadeja play in 2 formats, Ravichandran Ashwin has been in the Test team for a long time. It remains to be seen what kind of chemistry Gambhir will create with these four players in such situations.
Finding replacements for senior players is also a challenge for Gambhir. Jadeja and Kohli, aged 35-35, can play ODIs and Tests till 2027. Rohit, 37, Ashwin is likely to retire between 2025 and 2027. Gambhir’s challenge is to prepare the best option for the seniors while remaining in the team in such situations. Overall, Gambhir needs to prepare players like senior players.
Challenge-5: Leader to prepare all formats
Rohit Sharma has retired from the T-20 format. Hardik Pandya is a big contender to replace him to lead India in this format. It is certain that Rohit will continue as the captain of ODIs and Tests till 2025. In ODIs, only 30-year-old Pandya can replace him as captain, but Hardik will not play Tests. In such circumstances, who will be India’s Test captain after Rohit has become a challenge.
Team India has long had a philosophy of having one captain for all three formats. Because of this, MS Dhoni since 2008, Virat Kohli since 2017 and Rohit Sharma since 2022 have led India in all three formats. If the same philosophy continues, Gambhir will also face the challenge of preparing Team India’s All Format captain.
For the position of captains in all formats, the team has options of KL Rahul, Jasprit Bumrah, Shreyas Iyer, Shubman Gill. But if Rohit continues as the captain till 2027, Team India will be led by a new captain for 4 years in T20. In such a situation, under Gambhir’s coaching, one can also expect Team India to follow the strategy of having a split captain i.e. a separate captain for each format. In such a situation, there may be different captains for the three formats T-20, ODI, Test.
