The former opener believes fitness has made a huge difference in current Indian team's fortunes.
One of Indian cricket's biggest improvement area has been fitness; top-level physical health allowing the batsmen to delay their high-risk shots and bowlers their indiscipline spells under pressure, which makes a hell of a lot of difference in this day and age.
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"If you look at the current team's players, they are physically very fit as compared to earlier times," ANI quoted Gambhir as saying. "It is because earlier, physical fitness was not given that much importance. Since T20 format has come, cricket has become a physical sport."
"When I started playing cricket, there was no T20 cricket. It was not a physical sport but was a technical one. But if now you are not physically fit, I do not think you can do well in any format."
Meanwhile, Gambhir reckons a lot more girls in the country should be taking the sport in the coming years, with the rise in fortunes at the highest level of the Indian team, having reached the final of the 2017 50-over World Cup in England and becoming one of the semi-finalists at the T20 World Cup in the Caribbean two years back.
"If girls take up any sport, it is a big step towards our vision of making a sporting country," the 38-year-old said. "I would want girls to take cricket as seriously as men take it. If you look at the current women's team, they have played World Cup semi-finals and before that, they have been runner up of the World Cup. It is a very good sign for the country."
(Inputs from ANI)