India head coach Gautam Gambhir didn’t hold back as he slammed former BCCI chief selector Kris Srikkanth for alleging that pace bowler Harshit Rana has been picked in the ODI squad for the tour of Australia for being his "yes man".

Speaking on his YouTube channel earlier this month, Srikkanth had claimed that Rana was in the national side only because of his equation with Gambhir.

"Look, it's a little shameful. And I will be very honest with you. It is so unfair that you are targetting a 23-year-old kid for the sake of your YouTube channel. Because ultimately, his father is not an ex-chairman or an ex-cricketer or an NRI. Whatever cricket he has played so far, he has played on his own, and he will continue to play on his own. If you target someone individually, that is not fair," said Gambhir in a press conference on Tuesday (October 14), after India defeated West Indies by seven wickets in the Delhi Test to sweep series 2-0.

"You can target people's performance and there are selectors and coaches who target people's performance. But if you say such things to a 23-year-old kid, and then social media amplifies it even more, or in social media, you are told in such a way, imagine the mindset. In future, someone can target your kid too. Anyone can target anyone. At least you can realise that he is a 23-year-old kid," he added.

Harshit Rana rose to prominence for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) under Gautam Gambhir’s mentorship. He made his India Test debut in Australia last year, and his ODI and T20I debuts came against England earlier this year. He was also part of India’s Champions Trophy 2025 and Asia Cup 2025 winning squads.

"He is not a 33-year-old kid. You can criticise me, and I can still handle it. But a 23-year-old boy, is a 23-year-old boy. That is something which is not acceptable. I think that is why we need to be careful. What you say, only to run your YouTube channel. I think you've got, every one of us, not only me, you guys, every one of us have a moral responsibility towards Indian cricket. Indian cricket doesn't belong to me. It doesn't belong to people sitting in the dressing room. It belongs to all of you as well. It belongs to every Indian, who genuinely wants Indian cricket to do well. So you can criticise, but only on performance. Don't do it because you want to target an Indian.You want to target someone, you target someone. You target me, that's okay," Gambhir remarked.

"But, don't target a young boy. And, it is not only in Harshit's case, in future also, don't target these young boys. So, performance, I think performance, we all know that it is important,  results are important," he concluded.

India’s three-match ODI series against Australia is slated to get underway on October 19 in Perth.

(With PTI Inputs)