Head coach Gautam Gambhir is not concerned with star Indian batter Virat Kohli’s recent poor form as he believes that that the former India skipper is as hungry as he was when he made his debut and should not be judged after every match.
Kohli, who has played 3 Tests so far in the calendar year, has managed to score only one fifty in his last 8 innings. However, the Men in Blue will be counting on him to regain his form ahead of the 5-match Border-Gavaskar series.
Kohli has a great chance to regain his form in the upcoming 3-match Test series against New Zealand which is set to commence from October 16. Gambhir is confident that Kohli will start to perform well again very soon.
“See, my thoughts about Virat have always been very clear that he is a world-class cricketer. He has performed for such a long period of time. He is as hungry as when he made his debut. To now, his hunger is always there,” Gambhir told reporters on Monday.
“That hunger is what makes him a world-class cricketer. I am sure that he will be hungry to get runs in this series and probably moving forward to Australia as well,” Gambhir added.
The India head coach also asked the reporters to not judge a player on the basis of one bad match or series.
“You don’t keep judging people after every game. If you keep judging people after every game, that’s not fair on them. It’s a sport and people are bound to fail. But more importantly, I think if we can get the results, if people are doing what is needed of them to get the results in our favour, that is fine,” Gambhir said.
“Everyone doesn’t have the best days everyday. I think the kind of vibe we have is we keep backing our players. My job is to keep backing the players. My job is to keep selecting the best playing 11, not dropping anyone. I’m sure everyone is hungry and they know there are eight Test matches in a row. So, this is probably the start of them looking at eight Test matches in a row and performing well,” Gambhir added.
