“When we don't hesitate to criticise, then why hesitate to praise?” - Aakash Chopra hails Gautam Gambhir’s T20I record as coach

Former Indian cricketer and commentator Aakash Chopra has heaped praise on the Indian head coach Gautam Gambhir, who is having an exceptional run in the shortest format of the game, bagging nine consecutive T20I series wins since taking over the role.

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Though team India has been suffering from inconsistency in ODIs and Tests under Gambhir, they have been impressive in T20Is, with their latest series win coming against the BlackCaps by 3-1, with one more game left in the five-match series.

Speaking in a video uploaded on his X handle, Chopra asserted that Gambhir deserves full credit for India’s success in T20Is, adding that a 300-run target might not be enough to defend for a team like India in the shortest format.

"Gautam Gambhir deserves credit. When we don't hesitate to criticise, then why hesitate to praise? I'm talking about India's T20 batting approach. That approach is not the future - it's the present. We understood it late. The formula was the same: 11 players, 20 overs, and this is what you can achieve if you play fearlessly. India wasn't able to do it before," Chopra said in a video uploaded on X (formerly Twitter).

"Even now, ODI and T20I series take place together. New Zealand's bowling unit hasn't changed, but India's approach has. The moment we started dominating and decimating, we broke the opposition's resolve. Now they are saying even 300 might not be enough because this team is different," he added.

"Gautam Gambhir did the work. Previously, the talk was about playing aggressively under Rohit Sharma. Rohit did play that way and walked the talk. Secondly, the T20I side used to overlap with the ODI team. A lot of overlap used to happen, and the approach was different," said Chopra.

"Not everyone played aggressively. But the present side is a team of assassins and destroyers - whether it's Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, or Rinku Singh," he concluded.

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