Former South African cricketer AB de Villiers issued some advice to India head coach Gautam Gambhir after the team suffered a 0-2 defeat against Ireland and then a 4-0 defeat in two consecutive T20I series against England.
As a reminder, AB de Villiers mentioned that scoring a lot of runs in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and batting for the national cricket team are completely different games where players have no room to hide their weaknesses.
Back-to-back series defeats have raised questions on Team India in T20Is
With three T20 World Cup titles, including the 2026 T20 World Cup trophy, Team India has established itself as a supreme power in the shortest format of the game. Through the well-decorated domestic cricket ecosystem and, of course, through the IPL, there is no dearth of talent in Indian cricket.
It was beyond imagination when they ended the two-match T20 series with a 2-0 defeat and then England whitewashed the Shreyas Iyer-led side 4-0. Two consecutive series defeats hurt the team a lot, but as AB de Villiers said, it was a good lesson for the team.
AB de Villiers said on his YouTube channel, “He (Gautam Gambhir) needs to take leadership and ownership of how this team is going to move forward. He has all the qualities to do that. Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing to give a little warning. Bring the players back down to earth who have scored so many runs in the IPL.”
AB de Villiers compared IPL and international cricket
Without naming anyone, the former international batsman claimed that in the Indian Premier League, there were plenty of opportunities to score runs, unlike international cricket where cricket is at its best. De Villiers also said that in international cricket one should not expect to score runs while always maintaining top gear.
AB de Villiers further said, “Let them understand that this is international cricket; there are no other weaknesses. In the IPL, there are always one or two bowlers against whom you think you can score runs. There is no place to hide (in international cricket), so you have to have more than one or two gears. You cannot always bat in fifth gear.”
Vaibhav Suryavanshi failed to impress
Many batsmen of the current Indian cricket team’s T20 team scored a lot of runs with their respective franchises in the last season of the Indian Premier League. Vaibhav Suryavanshi is a prime example of this, who is in the national team with Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2026 after scoring 776 runs.
He made his Team India debut in Manchester for the second T20 match of the series against England and played three matches before being dropped from the playing eleven. The 5-year-old batsman, who emerged as the highest run scorer in three matches in IPL 2026, could not even cross the 15-run mark in a single match for India.
Sanju Samson, Tilak Verma – They also performed well in IPL 2026 but failed for India against England.
