Gautam Gambhir, known for his intense on-field attitude and aggressive mindset, is a stark contrast in his avatar as the head coach of the Indian cricket team, says offspinner Ravichandran Ashwin. Gambhir succeeded batting legend Rahul Dravid as the head coach with the latter stepping down after overseeing India’s title winning campaign at the 2024 T20 World Cup.
Also Read: India’s Likely Playing XI For 2nd Test Against Bangladesh
Gambhir took over the charge with the white-ball tour of Sri Lanka as India comfortably won the T20I series but lost the ODI series that followed. The ongoing two-match Test series against Bangladesh is Ashwin’s first brush with Gambhir the coach.
Ashwin has branded Gambhir as ‘relaxed rancho’.
“I think he (Gambhir) is very relaxed,” Ashwin, who scored a masterful century and took a five-wicket haul in the Chennai Test recently, said on his YouTube channel. “I want to call him ‘relaxed rancho’. There’s no pressure at all. In the morning, there will be a team huddle. He is very relaxed about that as well. He will be like ‘are you coming, please come’. It’s like that.”
On the other hand, Ashwin feels Dravid was someone who sought order in everything he did and was quite ‘regimented’.
“With Rahul bhai, as soon as we come, he wanted things in order: even a bottle should be kept at a particular place at a particular time. He is very regimented. He wanted things in order,” Ashwin said.
“With Gambhir, he doesn’t expect all that. He has a relaxed order. He will be a people’s man. He will capture everybody’s heart. I think he will be loved by the boys,” he added.
Gambhir’s stock rose after he joined Kolkata Knight Riders as their mentor ahead of IPL 2024 with the franchise winning the title for the first time since 2014. Prior to that, he was with Lucknow Super Giants in the same role and oversaw the IPL newbie’s run to successive top-four finishes.
Comments
0 comment