Make no mistake: Gautam Gambhir inherited an exceptional T20I side. India were not only the world champions but were also the first ever to win the trophy without losing a single match. It was not a one-month high either. Across the five series before the World Cup, India won four and drew one. Twelve wins (including one in a Super Over), two defeats, read their record.

It was easy to fail as Gambhir the T20I coach: how do you improve on a side like that? Where was the room for improvement?

An otherwise exceptional side with a ridiculously deep talent pool to pick from, the India limited-overs sides had two main issues. First, they were a side of batters who did not bowl. And secondly – this is T20-specific – they often wanted at least one batter to bat deep.

Doing away with the anchor

The second issue was easier to address: it depended on selection and assuring hitters a long run even if they failed.

T20 batters can be classified into two broad groups, of hitters and anchors (if one goes by contemporary jargon). As the hitters go about their business, the anchor bats deep into the innings and, as a result, usually end up facing the most balls for a team. While this ensures one resource (wickets) is not depleted early, it also means more of the other (balls) gets used up while scoring at a sub-par rate.

The relevance of the T20 anchor essentially depends on the assumption that hitters cannot switch roles. Pundits, captains, coaches, fans have differed on this. In the Gambhir era, India do not believe in the T20 anchor.

Thus, Sanju Samson does not care if he falls cheaply four times in four innings while taking risks: he tried it again a fifth time. Suryakumar Yadav’s low run of scores is not considered a concern. Abhishek Sharma and Rinku Singh do not slow down from 12-3; later in the innings at 79-5, Hardik Pandya and Shivam Dube do not play out a few watchful overs.

And when all seems lost – India need 40 with Arshdeep Singh, Ravi Bishnoi, Varun Chakravarthy for support – Tilak Varma can adapt and finish the game. There is little doubt that if and when he plays, Yashasvi Jaiswal, a successful Test opener, can do the same.

Hitters can anchor, you see. Perhaps better than anchors can hit. That is why hitters are paid more in franchise leagues. Gambhir knows this.

It is not a coincidence that of the four highest T20I scores in their history, three have come in the Gambhir era (including the South Africa tour where VVS Laxman filled in), as have three of their four fastest hundreds. India’s run rate over this period (10.28) is the highest among all Full Members.

Going the extra mile

India’s amazing run at the 2023 World Cup concealed the fact that they had to pick Shardul Thakur ahead of Mohammed Shami, and were forced to pick Suryakumar – never a top ODI player – to bring some balance once Pandya broke down. Their long tail was bound to impact the way their middle order batted in case of an early collapse: they were exposed in the final.

To address this, India took no chances at the T20 World Cup. They reduced the number of specialists by playing Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, and Axar Patel at the same time. Jadeja bowled 14 overs and faced only 22 balls across eight games, but India ensured that combination was never broken.

Three all-rounders, three specialist bowlers, five batters (including the keeper) did solve the problem to some extent, but it was not a long-term solution: quality all-rounders bear more burden and thus tend to pick up injuries, and are difficult to replace. Besides, despite their abilities with the bat, they are seldom true replacements for elite power hitters.

The only way for India to bolster their T20I batting was, thus, to get the batters to bowl. In Gambhir’s first T20I as head coach, Sri Lanka needed 56 in 24 balls. Steeper targets get chased all the time these days, but Surya tossed the ball to Riyan Parag, who had bowled only one over in his three T20Is until then.

India did not stop there. Riyan bowled his full quota in the second game. In the third, they decided that four bowlers (including Washington Sundar at eight) would suffice: the batters would handle the rest. Not too long after going 5+3+3 at the T20 World Cup, India used a dead rubber to experiment with 7+1+3.

Gautam Gambhir’s first series as T20I coach

Riyan bowled his four overs for 27 runs. With nine to defend in two overs, Surya used Rinku, then himself, to pick up four wickets and push the match into the Super Over… and win it. Dube did not even bowl. It might have backfired – it was a close game – but India had their eyes on the bigger picture: they were getting their batters to bowl with an eye on the 2026 World Cup.

It has been a norm since then. Abhishek chips in from time to time, even when India already have six bowlers to choose from. At times it is Dube. Tilak is a third option. Riyan may return.

In Samson, Abhishek, Jaiswal, Dube, Surya, and Rinku, India have an explosive batting order. Barring Samson, the keeper, all of them have also bowled in T20Is in the Gambhir era.

If a specialist bowler breaks down and another has a bad day or if the conditions demand an extra seamer or the matchup requires a specific kind of spinner, India are ready… unlike in 2023 or even early 2024. They are also ready to go in with six batters – one more than they did at the World Cup.

Not a first for Gambhir

Gambhir’s ascent to contention for the national head coach role had much to do with his IPL stints as mentor, for the Lucknow Super Giants and then, more significantly, the Kolkata Knight Riders.

LSG finished third in 2022 and 2023 with a unit characterised by long batting line-ups, filled with batters who bowled. Kyle Mayers, Marcus Stoinis, Krunal Pandya, Ayush Badoni, Deepak Hooda… you get the idea.

At KKR, Gambhir took things a step further by doing away with the KL Rahul-type anchoring that had been a salient feature of LSG. Phil Salt and Sunil Narine went after the bowling straight away.

Their batters bowled as well. In fact, there were so many of them that it was almost forgotten that Rinku, Nitish Rana, Venkatesh Iyer, Ramandeep Singh, or even Anukul Roy could be called upon to bowl.

Not everyone batted or bowled every day, but KKR always had them, just in case. India have implemented both blueprints in the Gambhir era.

India’s results in the format – 13 wins, two defeats, four series triumphs – have been remarkable. You see these streaks in Test cricket, whose 2,700 balls minimise the chances of upsets. But perhaps even more intimidating is the fact India are ironing out the minor things that needed to be sorted.

What about Test cricket?

The resounding win against Bangladesh, highlighted by the absurd fourth-day charge in Kanpur, seems a thing from another lifetime. Under Gambhir, India lost a home series (a home series!) to New Zealand (to New Zealand!), then conceded the Border-Gavaskar Trophy after holding it for four consecutive editions.

Not in a long time has the Indian Test side faced such ignominy for two consecutive series.

Legacies end, of course. Several heroes of the great Indian side of the late 2010s and early 2020s are on their way out, one by one. R Ashwin is gone. Jadeja, Rohit Sharma, Mohammed Shami are approaching their last days. There may be one final hurrah left in Virat Kohli. Or not.

Dynasties fall. New heroes rise. But there was more to this phase than all that. India’s excellent show at Perth made the New Zealand series seem like an aberration, but Australia gained ground at Adelaide and dominated the drawn Test at Brisbane.

Then, at Melbourne, they picked three all-rounders and three specialist bowlers. Sounds familiar? India were reducing the length of the tail, T20 style.

Washington and Nitish Kumar Reddy did help India avoid the follow-on, but after a three-man pace attack had let Australia score 474. For perspective, there have been 417 instances of a team scoring at least as many in the first innings, resulting in 214 wins and 15 defeats. The best India could hope from there was to save the Test, not win it.

Minimising the tail works in T20 cricket, where bowlers are neither expected to take wickets nor bowl longer to compensate for a weak attack. One could see where Gambhir, whose legacy has been built solely on T20, was coming from. Or why Rohit, whose legacy has also been built around T20, agreed to it. A year ago at Cape Town, the same Rohit – with a different coach, of course – was content to field a team where Jasprit Bumrah batted at eight and Mohammed Siraj at nine. India lost their last six wickets on the same score, but it did not matter: they had also bowled out South Africa for 55.

Time and again in the past few years had India fielded their best pace attack in ‘SENA’ countries, sacrificing batting strength in the process. Even getting bowled out for two-digit scores could not make them abandon that plan. Now, in the Gambhir era, they did.

Rohit sat out of the Sydney Test, but India did not alter their combination. The focus, yet again, was on minimising the tail. The burden took a toll on Bumrah and ruled him out of more than half of the fifth Test.

India lost the series 1-3. True, Australia were the better side. But India played a part as well as the series went on. Instead of going flat out for 20 wickets, they opted for a cushion that would convert their own 130s to 160s.

Unless that mindset changes, India are unlikely to reclaim their lost land anytime soon – despite breaking barriers in T20Is.

Separate coaches?

It is difficult to look beyond Gambhir as India’s T20I coach. Not many Indian coaches are going to say “we want to try and get to 250-260 regularly, and in trying to do that, there’ll be games where we’ll get bundled out for 120-130. And that is what T20 cricket is all about.” Such clarity of thought is refreshing.

At the same time, unless he abandons the safety-first plan that was brutally exposed at Melbourne and Sydney, it is difficult to see Gambhir at the helm of a successful Test team.

What about ODIs? Will the defensive Test coach show up there, or will it be the T20 maverick? Gambhir’s ODI stint has, so far, been restricted to three atypical ODIs, the kind of which India are unlikely to encounter outside Sri Lanka (or perhaps Bangladesh).

While not a great start, it has been a small sample. The England series and the Champions Trophy will tell us more.