India National Cricket Team head coach Gautam Gambhir has finally opened up on having a dynamic and flexible batting order in the T20 International (T20I) team.
Gautam Gambhir bluntly said that batting orders are overrated in T20I cricket and the real focus should be on the impact created by batters rather than focusing on which numbers they are batting at.
I think batting orders are very overrated, except the openers – Gautam Gambhir
The Indian T20I team has become a totally dominant force in world cricket since Gautam Gambhir took over as the head coach.
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They have played an ultra-aggressive brand of cricket both with the bat and ball, and are yet to lose a series in 20-over cricket under his guidance.
Gambhir has provided a great backing to his players, and one major change he has made to the team is making the batting order quite flexible. In the current Indian T20I setup, only the position of openers Shubman Gill and Abhishek Sharma is fixed, while the rest of the batters are used as floaters.
In a video shared by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Gambhir talked about this and said:
“Look, that has been the ideology from day one. When I took over as the head coach from Sri Lanka till now, it hasn’t changed. I think batting orders are very overrated, except the openers. Obviously, two openers are permanent. Rest, I think everything shuffles because it’s not the amount of runs that matter in T20 cricket.”
It’s the impact that matters – Gautam Gambhir
Gambhir justified his decision to create a flexible batting order by saying that the impact matters more in T20 cricket and not the runs. He said:
“It’s the impact that matters. And people sometimes miscalculate or do not differentiate between the batting order, the runs and the impact. See, runs are different and impact is different.
“In T20 cricket, it’s all about the impact. It’s 120 balls. Every ball is an event. Every ball needs to have the maximum impact that we can have. And that’s the reason from day one, I think it has been a very fluid batting order. And that is how we want to play this game.”
We don’t want to play a game thinking about averages – Gautam Gambhir
Gambhir further said that the Indian batters don’t think about averages and strike rate as their entire focus is on utilising the 120 balls. He elaborated:
“We don’t want to play a game thinking about averages, strike rates and all that stuff. We are thinking about how much impact can a person create in what situation. I think that is going to be very important for this T20 side.
“Because see, with time, T20 cricket will evolve. And as coaches, we as coaches don’t evolve. Obviously, we will be behind and we don’t want to be there.
“We want to be ahead of T20 cricket, ahead of times. And that is exactly the most important thing is that these guys, the young boys have adapted. And hopefully, they continue adapting and evolving in future.”
Also Read: Gautam Gambhir finally reveals why he keeps benching Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav
