BCCI's pool of lies exposed; Gautam Gambhir's interview with CAC just a formality, Head Coach position gifted months ago

Former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir has been recently appointed as the head coach of the Indian cricket team. Despite Gambhir having no coaching experience, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) handed him the reins of the Indian team, which was at the time quite surprising.

The BCCI had already made it clear that they don’t want any overseas coaches for Team India, and that’s why no foreign big name showed interest when they advertised for the high-profile job a few months ago.

BCCI chooses stature over experience as the Gautam Gambhir era is set to begin

Well, after Duncan Fletcher's departure about a decade ago, BCCI appointed only Indian support staff for the Men in Blue, with Anil Kumble, Ravi Shastri, and Rahul Dravid, whose tenure as head coach ended with the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 triumph, guiding the national team since then.

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They were all well-respected and big names in Indian cricket, and the BCCI wanted an Indian star of similar stature, but they had very limited options, with the legendary batter and National Cricket Academy (NCA) head VVS Laxman already denied the high-pressure job.

Gautam Gambhir and WV Raman were the only two candidates interviewed by BCCI's Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC), but it is being said that it was just a formality, as the 2011 World Cup winner was already finalized to replace Dravid as India's head coach about a month before the official announcement.

BCCI’s big gamble on Gautam Gambhir revealed

According to the Hindustan Times, Gambhir's appointment as India's head coach had been planned for months, regardless of the success of the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the IPL 2024. There have been notions that Gambhir got the high-profile role because he guided KKR to an IPL triumph more than a decade earlier this year.

However, it was not completely true. The latest report claimed that the BCCI was firm on its stance of appointing Gambhir as the new head coach of Team India; whether KKR wins the IPL 2024 or not under the mentorship of the former Indian batter, it barrenly mattered to the world’s richest cricket board.

Furthermore, the interview process with BCCI's Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) was just a formality. The BCCI recognized Gambhir as a person of great stature and integrity, valuing these qualities more than specific expertise in any particular format to hand over the reins of the Indian cricket team.

They believed Gambhir was also a well-respected player and a big name of his era, so they tilted towards the former KKR mentor for this job even though the fact that he retired from the game in 2019.

Notably, Gambhir has been given the free hand by the BCCI to pick his assistants, with the board only interested in retaining T. Dilip as the fielding coach, while Abhishek Nayar’s name is currently doing the rounds for the assistant coach’s role.

Former Indian pacer and Mumbai Indians (MI) coach Zaheer Khan also emerged as the frontrunner to become Team India’s next bowling coach, while Gambhir is likely to keep the batting coach’s position as well.