Indian cricket is once again drifting into familiar, uncomfortable territory — a grand search for excuses. After the disappointing home series against New Zealand, the bruising tour of Australia, and now the stutter against South Africa in a home series, the knives are out. Some are pointing at Gautam Gambhir, others at the selection committee. But the truth is more straightforward: India’s Test regression is a shared failure — and both head coach Gautam Gambhir and chief selector Ajit Agarkar cannot duck responsibility. Let’s be clear. The rot did not begin yesterday. India’s Test side has been riding on reputation for three years, surviving on the leftover aura of a once-formidable line-up. And this is where the comparisons with previous coaching regimes — Ravi Shastri or even R. Ashwin’s short mentoring stints — become slightly dishonest. Shastri walked into a dressing room powered by Kohli and Rohit Sharma at their peaks, supported by Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Rishabh Pant, Ashwin, Jadeja, Bumrah and Shami. It was an embarrassment of riches. He began with a fragmented, transitional squad — talented, yes, but untested, inconsistent, and still figuring out its collective identity. To expect Gambhir to manufacture instant greatness out of raw material is unreasonable. To expect results without structural stability is worse. Yet, this also doesn’t absolve him of responsibility. Because Gambhir has not helped himself. His selections, his messaging, his insistence on a hard-nosed brand of cricket — all of this has produced intent, but not outcomes. The team looks directionless in the middle sessions, confused in crisis, and inconsistent even in conditions that once guaranteed dominance. A modern Indian Test side struggling at home is not a minor concern — it is a red alert. But to dump every failure at Gambhir’s door is lazy analysis. Let us talk about the other half of this equation — Ajit Agarkar and the selection committee, whose decisions increasingly border on baffling.
The idea of projecting Shubman Gill as captain across all three formats feels less like a vision and more like an admission that Indian cricket — a nation of 1.4 billion — has run out of leadership options. Really? Has Indian cricket exhausted every possibility? Or is the committee simply trying to manufacture a poster boy instead of nurturing genuine leaders? Selections have been reactive. Debuts are handed out casually, players are dropped abruptly, and the bench looks more like a talent lottery than a pipeline. If Gambhir must answer for on-field confusion, Agarkar must answer for off-field chaos. A team can only be as good as the talent it is fed — and right now, the supply line is disjointed. This brings us to an uncomfortable whisper circling cricket circles — is Gambhir being targeted by the Mumbai lobby? The timing of criticism, the volume, the coordinated narrative — it all feels a bit too familiar. Gambhir’s political baggage as a former BJP MP has made him a soft target in a system where cricketing power pockets are deeply entrenched. Does that mean he is blameless? Certainly not. But is the scrutiny disproportionately harsher because he is not “one of them”? It is hard to deny. If he believes in accountability — and he repeatedly says he does — then he should voluntarily step aside or ask for a full performance review instead of waiting for the BCCI to pull the trigger. It is the dignified, honest, Gandhian way of leadership in Indian cricket — rare, but necessary. At the same time, Agarkar cannot escape with a shrug. Selection blunders have been central to India’s Test decline. If Gambhir is under the scanner, then Agarkar must face identical scrutiny. No more excuses. No more internal politics. No more selective accountability. India’s Test cricket cannot be reduced to a battle between one coach and one selector. This is about restoring a culture that once made Indian cricket fearless. And for that, both Gambhir and Agarkar must either fix what they broke — or step aside for those who can.
