Not Important to Have Played Lot of Cricket to be Successful Coach: Gautam Gambhir

Former India opener Gautam Gambhir is known to speak his mind and once again has expressed his views, this time on coaches. Recently, he had said that it is important for a selector to have played decent amount of international cricket, but that might not be important for a coach to be successful.

Talking on Star Sports show Cricket Connected, Gambhir said, “It's not important that you have played a lot of cricket, for you to be a very successful coach - probably, that's right for a selector, but not for a coach.

"Probably you can just have a different T20 batting coach, just for that particular format. It is really not true that someone who hasn’t played international cricket or who hasn’t played enough cricket, can’t become a successful coach.

According to him, what a coach does in T20 format is help the players clearing their mind, that helps them perform better.

"What ultimately a coach does in a T20 format is frees your mindset and feeds your mindset and make you hit those goals and those big shots.

"No one teaches you how to hit a lap shot or a reverse lap shot, no coach can do that. If someone is trying to do that to a player, he is harming him more than actually making him a better player.”

In his career, Gambhir played 58 Tests, in which he scored 4154 runs at an average of 41.95. In the 147 ODIs he made 5238 runs. As far as T20Is is concerned, in 37 appearances, he managed to score 932 runs.