"He is not a foreign coach who wants to get his equation right with Kohli and Rohit" - Nehra feels Gambhir should have rested the Indian senior duo
Former India bowler Ashish Nehra has opined that head coach Gautam Gambhir made a mistake by calling up Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli for the three-match ODI series in Sri Lanka. The Men in Blue face a 0-1 deficit with one contest to go, after the series opener was tied in Colombo.
Initial reports suggested that senior players like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah will be rested for the Sri Lanka tour following a hectic season which included the 2024 Indian Premier League (IPL) and the 2024 T20 World Cup. Team India also have a hectic home season coming up where they host Bangladesh and New Zealand.
However, with the pair of Rohit and Virat retiring from T20Is, Gambhir wanted them to be available for the ODI series. Team India only have one more ODI series in their schedule leading up to the 2025 Champions Trophy.
However, Ashish Nehra felt that Gambhir squandered the opportunity to test out some new players in the Sri Lanka series.
“The next series India play is 2-3 months later, a rare thing for us. So for players like Rohit and Kohli...I feel there was a better chance of giving opportunities to other players during this series. I know Gambhir is a new coach, and he wants to spend some time with the experienced players, but it isn't like he doesn't know the two of them," Nehra said on Sony Sports (via Hindustan Times)
"He is not a foreign coach who wants to get his equation right with Kohli and Rohit. So it was a good opportunity for him to try out the new players, and Rohit and Kohli could play when the home season begins. I'm not saying it is a wrong approach, but it could have been one of the strategies in this series,” Nehra added
Rohit Sharma has been in excellent touch with his aggressive approach, scoring successive fifties in the process. Kohli, however, has struggled against the Sri Lankan spin bowling unit and has been trapped LBW in both matches so far.
India head coach Gautam Gambhir on the brink of a series defeat in his very first assignment
The Men in Blue suffered a defeat by 32 runs in the second ODI against Sri Lanka following yet another collapse. Rohit Sharma's explosive fifty guided India to 97-0 while chasing 241, but none of the middle-order batters could handle Jeffrey Vandersay's spin bowling.
Team India take on Sri Lanka in a do-or-die encounter to conclude the tour on Wednesday, August 7.