IND v ENG 2025: Gambhir reacts to Dube-Rana concussion sub controversy; addresses rumours of dressing room rifts
India thrashed England 4-1 in the T20I series under Gambhir's coaching.
Gambhir, under whom India thrashed England 4-1 in the series, spoke about the Border-Gavaskar Trophy debacle that haunted the team in the last couple of months.
Speaking to Abhinav Mukund, Parthiv Patel, and Kevin Pietersen after the match, Gambhir clarified his stance on a number of issues.
Gambhir addressed the speculations of dressing room rifts during the Australia tour. While he refused to deny the rumours, the chief coach said that once results start going India's way, everything goes back to normal in Indian cricket.
"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.
"These are an incredible bunch of players. They enjoy themselves, they want to play for their country, they love playing for their country, and they know what it means to represent 140 crore Indians," he added.
The Indian team came under scrutiny for fielding pacer Harshit Rana as a concussion substitute for injured all-rounder Shivam Dube. Asked about the same by Pietersen, Gambhir laughed it off, saying that Dube was ready to bowl his full quota of overs today.
Dube was exceptional with the ball, returning with the figures of 2-0-11-2, claiming the prized scalps of Phil Salt and Jacob Bethell.
"He would have bowled four overs for sure today," Gambhir quipped after being asked about Dube being a like-for-like replacement.
Addressing the current team combination where he is going with only one specialist pacer, Gambhir said that the idea is to block the opposition side's middle order with 8 overs of Ravi Bishnoi and Varun Chakravarthy.
"See, for me, having Bishnoi and Varun bowling in tandem was very important, especially in the middle phase. We always knew that the kind of batting line-up England had, they would always come hard at us in the first six overs. But it is the 7-15 that we wanted to control and see if those two wicket-taking options could give us success. It is also about having the No. 8 batter, even if he does not face too many balls, because of the kind of cricket that we are playing. We want to go as hard as possible and sometimes that cushion of having that No. 8 would free up the top 7 more," he concluded.
The focus will now shift to the ODIs as India will play three matches against England, leading up to the Champions Trophy. The 50-over series will get underway on February 6 in Nagpur.
