Former Indian batter and presenter Wasim Jaffer has come out in strong support of the Indian head coach Gautam Gambhir despite the recent series defeats to Ireland and England in white-ball formats.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Jaffer asserted that it wasn’t fair to blame Gambhir in the white-ball formats despite the recent defeats. However, the former cricketer reckoned that some players could have been treated in a better way, citing Suryakumar Yadav and Mohammed Shami’s examples.
“Some individuals could have gotten better treatment, like Surya, who was axed after winning the World Cup. There are other players as well, like Shami. Some things could have been better. But otherwise, I don’t think in white-ball cricket any blame can be put on him,” he said in a video on his YouTube channel.
Under Gautam Gambhir, India won the 2025 Champions Trophy and the 2026 T20 World Cup. With two major ICC trophies, the head coach has had a successful stint as far as white-ball cricket is concerned.
Moving into the red-ball format, Jaffer emphasised that the home series defeats to New Zealand and South Africa will be a black mark for the Men In Blue, adding that a lot of improvement was needed, not just for Gambhir, but all the players involved.
“The mark of those two whitewash series will always be on him, without a doubt. Not just on his CV but also on the captain and other players. Coming to India and beating them was a final frontier that not many teams had achieved. It was very bad for us to suddenly lose like that. He will definitely feel that had we won those series, we would be at the top of the WTC table. There is a lot of scope for improvement in Test cricket for him. Not just for him, but for the players also. It is the players who go and play, not the coach. But some of the selections could have been better,” he concluded.
