'I Can't Say...': Gautam Gambhir Breaks Kohli-Shastri's Selection Theory Across Formats

Gautam Gambhir has taken over as the head coach of Team India as he he was officially unveiled by BCCI on Monday Morning. Gautam Gambhir took charge of his first press conference as India Head Coach alongside chief selector Ajit Agarkar as they fielded questions over India's selection for tour against Sri Lanka. 

In his first press conference as head coach, Gautam Gambhir already broke Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri's team selection theory for selecting a team in all three formats of the game. 

Gautam Gambhir's approach of an all format team

Unlike his predecessors, Gautam Gambhir has made it clear that he doesn't believe in fielding three different teams across three different formats. He wants to keep the Indian core as consistent as possible and believes that if a team remains consistent then it is better. 

However, he did admit that Indian Cricket would go into transition in T20Is with retirement of stalwarts like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja. But he would want to keep the core of 50 Overs and Test side as close as possible. 

“Virat, Rohit and Ravindra are not there in T20is. So it will happen (transition). Right now, I can't say there will be three different teams. Yes, the T20I team will go through a transition because 3 world-class players are retiring. But in 50 overs, in Test cricket, the more consistent we can be, the better it will be. The more players we have playing both formats, it's always better for any team. That's my opinion,” said Gautam Gambhir. 

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This comes as a welcome change for Indian Cricket because for long they have had many players who have managed the work load and played specific format. 

What was the Virat-Shastri selection theory?

As successful as Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri's partnership for Indian cricket was, there was however, one common criticism - chopping and changing players.

Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri as a coach captain duo were considered to be ruthless and trigger happy to quickly change players after a few bad performances. There always seemed to be one change or the other as there were times a same team XI didn't play in back to back matches for years. 

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A big change was the dropping Ambati Rayudu ahead of 2019 World Cup leaving a lot of confusion for the number 4 spot. 

Gautam Gambhir on the other hand is looking for consistency across formats and to keep the same core.