Gautam Gambhir openly blames BCCI for India’s Test series loss to South Africa at home
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Another humiliating loss for India, head coach Gautam Gambhir has made some bold statements and has indirectly blamed the scheduling of the series for the defeat against the Proteas.
As India faced a whitewash in the series, Indian fans are back on blaming Gautam Gambhir for the sudden low in India's red-ball campaign. Under Gambhir's reign, India are yet to win a single Test series against any major Test side.
Since he arrived in 2024, India might have dominated the white-ball formats and have also won tournaments like the ICC Champions Trophy and the Asia Cup 2025, but have struggled in the longest format of the game.
Gautam Gambhir resorts to the blame game after another home series humiliation
Gautam Gambhir took over as India's head coach from Rahul Dravid after their ICC T20 World Cup victory. Playing under Gambhir, India has won only two Test series, too, at home against Bangladesh and the West Indies.
All of the other series have either been draws or humiliating losses for India. The New Zealand home series ended in a whitewash, followed by the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which India lost 3-1 after having retained it for years.
Though India were not always impressive in the England tour, some of the stunning performances from the players covered for the technical errors of their coach; otherwise, Gambhir made many blunders as well.
"Scheduling does make a difference" - Gambhir cites poor scheduling as the Test losses
Speaking at the press conference, Gautam Gambhir said that the scheduling made the difference in the recently concluded Test series against the Proteas, as they didn't have a lot of time to prepare for the red-ball games.
“Look, obviously, scheduling does make a difference. Imagine three days before the start of the first Test, we were in Australia. And suddenly you come back from there, and you have got two days to plan with the Test side," said Gambhir.
"But that again is not an excuse. Sometimes, we can probably prioritize this better. We can have more gaps in the middle so that we can probably start working on certain skill sets,” he added.
India's prep for the series wasn't the most ideal. But Gautam Gambhir says that isn't an excuse #INDvSA pic.twitter.com/EYf7tsapQV
— Cricbuzz (@cricbuzz) November 26, 2025
Gambhir's all-rounder approach is a problem?
The Indian head coach has not had the best of strategies when it came to red-ball cricket; sometimes his ideas have not been all that effective in the ODIs as well. Though Gautam Gambhir seems invincible in T20Is, he has also lost two ODI bilaterals against Sri Lanka and Australia.
He has idealized the inclusion of a maximum number of all-rounders in the team, which has compromised the batting for India. Like overprioritizing players is a wrong move, not handing them enough opportunities is also an equally bad move.
Some players have been given way too much preference, while some have been totally ignored by Gambhir, which doesn't seem like a very good strategy.
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