India national cricket team head coach Gautam Gambhir has finally opened up on the dynamic and flexible batting line-up in the T20 International (T20I) team.
Gautam Gambhir clearly said that batting order is given more importance in T20I cricket and the real focus should be on the impact made by the batsmen and not on what number they are batting at.
I think too much importance has been given to the batting order except the openers – Gautam Gambhir
The Indian T20I team has absolutely become a dominant force in world cricket since Gautam Gambhir became the head coach.
He has played very aggressive cricket with both bat and ball and has not lost any series in 20 over cricket under his guidance.
Gambhir has provided excellent support to his players and one of the major changes he has made to the team is to make the batting order very flexible. In the current Indian T20I setup, only the positions of openers Shubman Gill and Abhishek Sharma are fixed, while the rest of the batsmen are used as floaters.
Gambhir talked about this in a video shared by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and said:
“Look, this has been the philosophy since day one. There has been no change since I took over as head coach from Sri Lanka. I think a lot of importance is given to the batting order except the openers. Obviously, the two openers are permanent. Rest, I think everything changes because the number of runs does not matter in T20 cricket.”
Impact is all that matters – Gautam Gambhir
Justifying his decision to create a flexible batting order, Gambhir said that in T20 cricket, impact matters more, not runs. He said:
“It’s the impact that matters. And people sometimes misjudge or don’t differentiate between batting order, runs and impact. Look, runs are different and impact is different.
“In T20 cricket, it’s all about impact. It’s 120 balls. Every ball is an event. Every ball needs the maximum impact that we can. And that’s why from day one, I think it’s been a very fluid batting order. And that’s how we want to play this game.”
We don’t want to play matches thinking about average – Gautam Gambhir
Gambhir further said that Indian batsmen do not think about average and strike rate as their entire focus is on using 120 balls. He elaborated:
“We don’t want to play the game thinking about averages, strike rates and all these things. We are thinking about how much impact an individual can make in which position. I think that is going to be very important for this T20 team.”
“Because look, with time, T20 cricket will evolve. And as coaches, we don’t evolve as coaches. Obviously, we will be behind and we don’t want to be there.”
“We want to be ahead of the times in T20 cricket. And the most important thing is that these guys, the young boys, have adapted. And hopefully they will continue to adapt and develop in the future as well.”
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