3 min readJul 15, 2026 04:34 PM IST
As Gautam Gambhir completed 2 years of tenure as the India head coach, Mohammad Kaif was asked to rate the former India opener’s performance at the helm. Kaif did not mince his words, saying that he would rate it at just 4/10, adding that Gambhir needed to be more transparent with senior players like Virat Kohli.
“I’ll reduce some numbers. I’ll give him 4 out of 10. I’ll tell you why. There are recent reports which points out that Gambhir and Kohli are not seeing eye to eye. We have seen Gambhir interacting with Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill. This is one problem. The job of the coach and the management is to maintain transparency and to initiate communication. They should keep everyone on the same page. Winning and losing will be on the ground. But the reasons behind them, like if a player is dropped, tell them why so that the player is not in doubt,” Kaif said to Cricbuzz.
“Now, if Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir are not working together, this is not a good sign for India. If they are not in the same page, this is bed news for Indian fans. Because in this England tour, we are focussing on the 2017 World Cup. It won’t be easy to win in overseas conditions so you have to maintain unity in the team. Senior players have a very big role. You need to go to the senior players’ room and talk to them on how you can fix the problem. This is the job of a coach,” he added.
Gambhir’s tenure as the Indian head coach started in 2024 when he succeeded Rahul Dravid at the helm. In the following two years, India have gone through numerous ups and downs under him with the Men in Blue winning the 2025 Champions Trophy, the 2026 T20 World Cup as well as the 2025 Asia Cup.
However, the team’s Test form under him has left a lot to be desired with India getting whitewashed by New Zealand and South Africa at home in 2024 and 2025 respectively. They also failed to retain the Border Gavaskar Trophy, losing the series 3-1.
Recently, with a new T20I skipper Shreyas Iyer at the helm, the shortest format has also shown concerning results with India getting whitewashed by Ireland and then by England, losing two consecutive series.
In the 1st ODI vs England on Tuesday, India finally went back to winning ways with a 6-wicket victory over the hosts. They will face England in 2 more matches and will hope to win this series and leave English soil on a high, like they did in the 2025 Anderson-Tendulkar Test series where an Indian team in transition drew 2-2 with the hosts.
