On an unnaturally bright and sunny July afternoon at the Oval, Gautam Gambhir And Brendon McCullum They were engrossed in a non-cricket discussion barely a few meters away from the pitch where the series finale between England and India was about to be played. If a casual cricket fan was keeping track of that India-England series – especially after what happened between the two teams in Manchester Ravindra Jadeja And washington beautiful Rejected Ben Stokes’ offer to shake handsAnd then between Gambhir and the Surrey curator leading the case – they must have rubbed their eyes watching these scenes. India’s head coach and his counterparts chatting among themselves. However, a regular cricket fan will not do this.
Leaving aside their origins and batting styles, Gambhir and McCullum are very similar individuals. Brave, outspoken, authoritative, unapologetic and, dare we say it, polarizing. You’ll either love them or hate them; There is no possibility of ignoring them. Having said that, similar qualities certainly weren’t the only reason behind their cordial discussion during a heated series. they were teammates Kolkata Knight Riders In IPL 2013. KKR is also the franchise that played an important role in bringing both Gambhir and McCullum to worldwide recognition as coaches. McCullum was recruited by KKR as England’s red-ball coach after IPL 2022, and Gambhir took over from Rahul Dravid after playing a key role in making KKR the IPL champions in 2024.
Coaches rarely take center stage in cricket, but Gambhir and McCullum do. His words, actions, team selection, attitude and everything else is an advertisement. Sometimes, you feel like they not only run the show, they are the show.
Naturally, there are some downsides to this as well. When results don’t go their way, the reaction is severe, sometimes even unforgiving. And under Gambhir and McCullum, both India and England have seen that happen to a great extent.
Even before “baseball” became part of the cricket lexicon to describe McCullum’s (nicknamed “the Hawk”) ultra-aggressive playing style, which many believed was changing the batsman’s approach to Test cricket, there were hints of McCullum’s unique methods during his captaincy days for New Zealand. He did not believe in taking the game deeper. Often during ODI matches, McCullum would exhaust his quota of main bowlers within 40 overs. His thinking was simple: why wait until the 50th over when the work can be done 10 overs earlier? Needless to say, this was not always successful, but it was a complete departure from the accepted norms of ODI cricket.
The first glimpse of his buzzball leadership style was tasted by Lahore Qalandars in PSL 2017. After a disastrous inaugural season, in which the league’s second most expensive franchise finished last, McCullum was appointed captain and was also given the additional role of batting consultant. His style of attacking at all costs proved worse. Lahore Qalandars lost six consecutive games. McCullum stood up amid severe criticism.
However, this did not mean that McCullum changed his stance. Coach McCullum was even more aggressive than Captain McCullum. He asked finisher Dinesh Karthik to bat at No. 3 for KKR and in his first stint as an international coach, he dared to change the definition of Test cricket and stuck to it. What was different from Lahore Qalandars and KKR in England was that they got a captain and a managing director, Ben Stokes and Rob Key, who were completely based on their ideas. McCullum himself might have once doubted his style, but Stokes and Key? Never
Did baseball bring results for England? It did, and it didn’t. When McCullum took charge of the England Test team, the team, led by Joe Root and Chris Silverwood, was in disarray and had managed only one win in its last 19 matches. The advent of the buzzball philosophy brought about a dramatic change, with England playing fearless, aggressive cricket and recording attractive series wins, particularly in Pakistan and New Zealand. This change injected energy and entertainment into a team that was floundering.
However, the limitations of the approach have also been exposed. England have struggled against the best teams, particularly India and Australia, and the challenges ahead in South Africa could once again put buzzball under scrutiny. Although this method has brought England depth away, it has not yet taken them to the top level of Test cricket.
An ultra-aggressive mindset has yielded some surprising fourth innings totals against India at home, but the same strategy has repeatedly backfired in the Ashes in Australia. Conditions demanding patience and adaptability have often punished England’s all-out attacking style, highlighting that the buzzball, for all its effectiveness, is a work in progress rather than a ready-made formula.
Gambhir missed his target
What about serious? Ironically, before Gambhir’s first real test in red-ball cricket began against New Zealand at home, he was asked about England’s buzzball style. Gambhir’s response was, “We want to be a team that can score 400 runs in a day and bat for two days to save a draw.” “And you call it development, you call it adaptability, you call it Test cricket. If you only play one way, there is no development.”
Gambhir’s team had shown the courage to perform first in the last test itself. Despite playing only 35 overs in the first three days of the Test against Bangladesh in Kanpur, India won the match as they batted at 8.2 runs per over in their first innings and forced a result. with players like Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rishabh Pant And KL Rahul In the XI, one can expect a repeat of this at any time. As far as batting for two days to save a Test is concerned, there is only one example of this – in Manchester, when Jadeja and Washington Sundar batted tooth and nail to save the match.
Since Gambhir’s statement on adaptability, India have lost five out of seven Tests on home soil and won the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the first time in more than a decade. With the exception of a 2-2 draw with a relatively inexperienced Test team in England, Gambhir’s coaching style has proved dangerously destructive for Indian cricket.
Furthermore, he has been at the forefront of transition, a term he appears to dislike but often falls back on whenever things go unplanned.
Sure, Virat Kohli And Rohit Sharma were not at their best in the longest format, but the two legends certainly deserved a well-planned and better-executed farewell, and the less said about Ravichandran Ashwin’s exclusion from the Test XI, the better.
This is where the differences between Gambhir and McCullum also come to the fore. McCullum only took charge of an England Test team that was in poor shape, but Gambhir inherited a well-built Indian machine across all formats. India were T20 World Cup champions, an unbeatable force in Test matches at home and a very competitive team abroad with Test wins in England, Australia and South Africa.
Under Gambhir’s leadership, India have defeated only Bangladesh and West Indies at home and even lost the ODI series in Sri Lanka – the first time in two and a half decades. But still, Gambhir is “the same coach who won the Champions Trophy and the Asia Cup.” Certainly, credit is given where it is due, but even in India’s limited overs units, one is rarely assured of the correct numbers, leave alone a place.
which is the same Champions Trophy winning captainRohit is replaced by Shubman Gill, sanju samsonThe man who scored three centuries while opening the batting in six months of T20I cricket is dragged into the middle order to accommodate Gill and then dropped from the eleven due to his ‘one captain for all formats’ stance. Sundar is considered an alternative to Ashwin, but he does not get a chance to bowl often. Axar Patel batted at number 3 while chasing the target of 215 runs in the T20 match against South Africa. Arshdeep SinghThe best white-ball fast bowler in the country after Jasprit Bumrah is still not guaranteed a place in the playing eleven. a tour Mohammed Shami No space is available in any format; The list is long, and the list lacks logic, but the serious are adamant.
The BCCI has shown no signs of holding the coach accountable, at least not publicly. With the T20 World Cup in less than two months and hopes of a maiden WTC title fading, Indian cricket fans can expect at least the consistency from Gambhir that McCullum has given England. The results can sometimes be disappointing, but at least they know what to expect from their team.
