Living up to his reputation of not mincing words, India head coach Gautam Gambhir mocked those spreading rumours of a rift in the Indian team. On Team India's previous tour, away to Australia, reports of there being divide in the Indian team emerged. As results went against the Indian team Down Under, the defeats against Australia further fuelled the rumours, but Gambhir decided to maintain his silence on the matter. However, after helping the Indian team secure a 4-1 T20I series win against England, Gambhir decided to give it back to those spreading the rumours.
During a post-match chat after the conclusion of the 5th T20I in Mumbai, Gambhir highlighted how the nature of results trigger different kind of rumours in the team.
"They have played a lot of cricket with each other. More importantly, a month back, there were a couple of other rumours flying around (laughs). That's what Indian cricket is all about. There will be so many things said about the dressing room when things are not going okay. But once results start going in your favour, things start falling in place," Gambhir said.
It also has to be noted that Gambhir didn't call the Border-Gavaskar rumours to be false. Rather, just went about explaining the nature of the game.
Gambhir also said the team is ready to push the barriers in T20 Internationals with the adoption of a fresh "high-risk, high-reward" approach, and the target is now "to get 250-260 regularly” in the format.
In the fourth T20I at Pune, India kept attacking England despite losing wickets to eventually set a match-winning 181 for 9, and at Mumbai on Sunday, the hosts raced to 247 for 9, their fourth highest total in this format.
"That's the kind of T20 cricket we want to play. We don't want to fear losing a game of cricket. We want to play high-risk, high-reward cricket. And these guys have adopted that ideology really well,” Gambhir told the host broadcaster after the match on Sunday.
Gambhir said they are looking to post tall totals in the vicinity of 250 in every game, and he doesn't mind getting out for a low score in some matches while attempting to achieve the task.
"We want to try and get to 250-260 regularly. And in trying to do that, there'll be games where we'll get bundled out for 120-130. And that is what T20 cricket is all about.
"Unless and until you don't play that high-risk cricket, you won't get those big rewards as well. Most importantly, I think we're on the right track. Come those big tournaments, we want to continue playing this way and we don't want to fear losing anything," he added.
With PTI Inputs