Trailing 1-2 in the series, Team India are facing a must-win situation in the fifth and final Test against Australia at SCG to retain the coveted Border-Gavaskar trophy. Moreover, the visitors need to win in Sydney to have any chances of making it to the upcoming World Test Champions final.
On the eve of the match, India head coach Gautam Gambhir addressed a press conference, where he emphasized the necessity of honesty for a team in transition phase.
Gambhir also called for patience as he showed his faith on the promising young talents India have in their ranks.
"The kind of talent that there is in Indian cricket, we will always be in safe hands. But there will be times when we will not have the results, we will have to be patient," Gambhir told reporters.
"More than criticising the young players, we will need to give them time to develop as well, and that is not only the role of the support staff but you people (media) as well -- probably not criticising them but help them out as well. Transition happens not just for us but the country and we're in it together."
Indian batting has failed to live up to the expectations in the ongoing BGT, with only Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul showing some sort of consistency among the specialist batters. All-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy showed his exceptional talent by hitting a century in Melbourne.
Senior batters Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have come under the scanner owing to repeated failures, with calls for their retirement getting louder.
With the legendary duo in the twilight of their career, Gambhir was also asked about his views on transition and how he is looking to handle it going forward.
"Indian cricket will always be in safe hands as long as we have honest people sitting in that room, and honesty is the most important thing for any transition. It is not about phasing out the senior players and getting in the young ones...Ultimately the only thing that can keep you in the dressing room is performance, and it starts from all of us," said Gambhir.
"It is exciting times in Indian cricket. I've always felt that when transitions have happened in the past, there was one department that was carrying the team forward. But at the moment, transition will happen in both the departments (bowling and batting) and you can already see that. You can see some younger fast bowlers coming in; there are younger batters who are on their first tour of Australia and have done exceptionally well,” he further remarked.
"Look at Yashasvi Jaiswal, Nitish Reddy or Washington Sundar; Akash Deep has bowled really well, so has Harshit (Rana). So the conversation that has happened has only been about how we can play well in this series," he concluded.
