A few months after becoming a Member of Parliament in 2019, former India batter Gautam Gambhir had pointed out facing consequences of India’s 0-4 Test whitewash in Australia seven years ago. For the unversed, India had also faced an exactly same drubbing in England a few months ago before traveling down under.
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Speaking to The Lallantop, Gambhir had questioned the move to sack him as vice-captain at a time when nothing had happened to captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Gambhir, in fact, was shocked to lose the vice-captaincy to Virat Kohli with Dhoni being retained as a captain for Asia Cup 2012 (not a triangular series as he mentions below).
“MS Dhoni captain, main vice-captain. Jab woh series khatam hui, uske baad hamein waapas aake Bangladesh jaana tha tri-series khelne, India-Bangladesh-Sri Lanka. Duncan Fletcher coach the hamare. Toh baat yeh hui ke ji Dhoni ke upar bhi pressure tha, obviously, kaptaan hai toh 4-0 haare aur triangular series me bhi final mein qualify nahin kare. Agar koi change hua toh vice-captain ko hataake, Virat Kohli ko vice-captain banaya gaya. Ke kabhi aisa hua hain ki vice-captain ko hataya gaya aur kaptaan wahi ke waha. Kabhi aisa nahi hua hoga [MS Dhoni was captain, I was vice-captain. When India’s tour of Australia 2011/12 ended, we had to tour Bangladesh for a tri-series involving Sri Lanka. Duncan Fletcher was our coach. Dhoni was under pressure as a captain as we lost 0-4 and failed to qualify for Commonwealth Series 2012 final. The only change that happened was vice-captain was removed and Virat Kohli was made the new vice-captain. Has it ever happened before? It must’ve never happened],” Gambhir told The Lallantop.
— SUPRVIRAT (@ishantraj51) December 9, 2023
Riding high on ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 glory, losing eight Tests in England and Australia was quite a crash for the Indian team back in the day. Questions were raised, and fingers were pointed, but Gambhir believes, only he faced the repercussions despite Dhoni also failing to perform as per his reputation. Having played 14 innings across seven Tests in England and Australia, Gambhir and Dhoni had scored 283 and 322 runs at an average of 20.21 and 26.83 respectively.
It was indeed a rare occasion where the selection committee had bothered to make amends to the vice-captaincy without touching the captain. Having said that, it wasn’t as if Dhoni’s captaincy was entirely out of danger. Mohinder Amarnath, one of the selectors under Krisnamachari Srikkanth, wanted to sack Dhoni as Test captain but couldn’t do so because of N Srinivasan, the then BCCI president.
Gautam Gambhir Was Reinstated As Vice-Captain For ICC World Twenty20 2012
While Gambhir’s mediocre numbers across both the series jolted his stature, Kohli, on the other hand, was a rising star who scored a mesmerizing century against Sri Lanka in Hobart. Having also registered a maiden Test century at the Adelaide Oval a match after fearing for his Test spot, he was India’s sole century-maker on that tour.
A maiden tour of Australia not only only cemented Kohli’s spot in the Indian Test Playing XI but also laid the foundation for his progression in the role of a vice-captain.
“We feel Virat Kohli is an excellent future captain,” chief selector Srikanth had told reporters as quoted by NDTV.
For those who don’t know, Gautam Gambhir was first appointed India’s vice-captain for ICC Champions Trophy 2009 in South Africa due to an injury to then-designated vice-captain Yuvraj Singh. Gambhir, who averaged 90 across the six ODIs which India won under him, was replaced as a vice-captain by a Delhi-born cricketer a handful of months after his last international match as a leader.
However, since things weren’t quite settled across formats, Gambhir was reinstated as a vice-captain for ICC World Twenty20 2012 in Sri Lanka. Having successfully led Kolkata Knight Riders to their inaugural Indian Premier League title in 2012, recency bias could’ve worked in a deserving Gambhir’s favour.
Apart from becoming the fourth captain (second Indian) to lift an IPL trophy, the left-handed batter had also emerged as the second-highest run-scorer due to his 590 runs coming at an average and strike rate of 36.87 and 143.55 respectively.
