Join now and get your first month for just $1 ><\/a><\/p>\nThe usually flamboyant Test match star scored just 312 runs from 14 innings in this year\u2019s IPL, at a strike rate of 138.05.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe responsibility is to play for India \u2013 the rest, everything else, is a by-product,\u201d Gambhir told reporters on the eve of the Test.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you start playing for India, you don\u2019t think about being a vice-captain. You think about doing good for India.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gambhir said that no player is told to \u201cplay a completely different game than his natural game\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will not tell him to \u2018curb your game\u2019, but in international cricket, it is very important to play the situation, to read the situation,\u201d Gambhir added.<\/p>\n
India\u2019s head coach Gautam Gambhir. Photo by Sajjad HUSSAIN \/ AFPSource: AFP<\/p>\n
Gambhir\u2019s Test record as India coach is unimpressive with 10 defeats, seven wins and two draws in 19 matches.<\/p>\n
India suffered a 2-0 defeat to South Africa at home in November in their most recent Test outing.<\/p>\n
They were also whitewashed in 2024 by New Zealand on home soil. Gambhir is taking positives though from the 2-2 Test series draw in England last year, and performances against the West Indies.<\/p>\n
India won 2-0 at home in October.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all know how well this young team played in England, and then we won against West Indies,\u201d he said, admitting that the South Africa series still \u201churts\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are young boys,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have got enough talent to turn it around, and I am very hopeful that we will give ourselves the best chance to win the World Test Championship.\u201d<\/p>\n
The match is not part of the World Test Championship cycle, but is a key game for Afghanistan who played their debut five-day game in India in 2018.<\/p>\n
Afghanistan, led by Hashmatullah Shahidi, have since played 12 Tests and won four.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re fully focused on this Test match,\u201d coach Richard Pybus said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur focus is on, cliche as it sounds, is really our control \u2013 it\u2019s what we need to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lone Test between India and Afghanistan gets underway on Saturday at 2pm AEST.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"India coach Gautam Gambhir told struggling Rishabh Pant on Friday to stick to his natural attacking game after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-718133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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