Gautam Gambhir – The Head Coach
The Indian Cricket board has appointed Gautam Gambhir as the head coach of the men’s team.
The former batsman and BJP politician will assume leadership of the Indian team following Rahul Dravid’s decision to step down.
India’s cricket board has appointed Gautam Gambhir as the head coach of the men’s team. The former opener will succeed Rahul Dravid and is charged with building on their recent World Cup victory.
“It is with immense pleasure that I welcome Mr. Gautam Gambhir as the new Head Coach of the Indian Cricket Team,” Jay Shah, the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), announced in a statement on Tuesday.
The 42-year-old Gambhir is succeeding batting legend Dravid, who concluded his tenure with the T20 World Cup title in Barbados last month.
Gautam Gambhir’s Career
During his 13-year international career for India, which began with his ODI debut in 2003, Gambhir scored over 10,000 runs.
He is the only Indian, and one of four international cricketers including Don Bradman, Jacques Kallis, and Mohammad Yousuf, to have scored centuries in five consecutive Test matches.
Gambhir, a left-handed batsman who played a crucial role in India’s 2011 ODI World Cup victory, recently coached the Kolkata Knight Riders to an Indian Premier League (IPL) title.
After retiring from playing, the typically serious Gambhir moved into commentary and later ventured into politics, becoming a lawmaker for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He left politics in March to join the IPL’s Kolkata team, which he had led to two titles in 2012 and 2014. Gambhir now takes over a team with heightened expectations following their T20 triumph, marking their fourth World Cup title and their first major victory since the 2013 Champions Trophy. Gambhir’s first assignment as coach of the national team will be India’s white-ball tour of Sri Lanka in late July.
