“Why can't he just resign?” - Ex-Indian cricketer wants Gautam Gambhir to resign as head coach ahead of Asia Cup 2025

Former Indian batter Manoj Tiwary has taken a dig at the Indian head coach Gautam Gambhir ahead of the Asia Cup 2025 campaign. In his exclusive conversation with CricTracker, Tiwary stated that Gambhir is a ‘hypocrite’ and called for his resignation.

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Delving into the details, Tiwary has revealed that when Gambhir was not coaching the Indian team, he mentioned that India shouldn’t play Pakistan. However, once he became the head coach, India is all set to play Pakistan in the forthcoming Asia Cup campaign, which didn’t go down well with Tiwary.

"I always felt that he's someone who is a hypocrite. He's a hypocrite because he's the one who said that India, when he was not the coach of Team India, said that India and Pakistan should never play a match between them," Tiwary told CricTracker.

"What will he do now? He's the coach of the team that's going to play Pakistan in the Asia Cup. Why can't he just resign and say that 'I will not be part of the team because you are playing with Pakistan'?" Tiwary questioned.

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After the Pahalgam terror attack in April 2025, the Indian head coach had disclosed that it is up to the government to decide whether India should play Pakistan or not, adding that fans shouldn’t politicise it.

"My personal answer to this is absolutely no. Ultimately, this is the government's decision whether we play them or not. I have said this before also, no cricket match or Bollywood or any other interaction is more important than the life of Indian soldiers and Indian citizens. Matches will keep happening, movies will be made, singers will continue to perform, but nothing comes close to losing a loved one in your family,” Gambhir had said earlier.

"This is not up to me, it's not in my jurisdiction, this is for the BCCI and, more importantly, the government to decide whether we should play them or not. Whatever decision they make, we should be absolutely fine with it and not politicise it," he had added.

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India’s squad for Asia Cup: Surya Kumar Yadav (C), Shubman Gill (VC), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma (WK), Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Sanju Samson (WK), Harshit Rana, Rinku Singh.

Standby players: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Prasidh Krishna, Washington Sundar, Riyan Parag and Dhruv Jurel.

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