India’s blistering from in T20Is has been defined by their explosive batting lineup, which itself has been defined by everyone except the openers rotating their positions in the order. Head coach Gautam Gambhir has now elaborated on India’s approach, stating that he prefers to send out batters based on the impact they can make in a particular situation rather tha based on their usual batting number or their averages and strike rates.
“That has been the ideology from Day 1 when I took over as head coach,” Gambhir said in a video posted on the official website of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Batting orders are very overrated. The two openers are permanent. The rest, I think, everything shuffles because it’s not the amount of runs that matter in T20 cricket it’s the impact that matter.
India captain Suryakumar Yadav had also echoed similar sentiments after their recent series win in Australia. Gambhir explained that his approach in T20 cricket is to maximise every ball available. “People sometimes do not differentiate between the runs and the impact. Runs and impact are different. In T20 cricket, it’s all about impact. In 120 balls, every ball is an event, there needs to be maximum impact on each. That is the reason why it has been a very fluid batting order. We don’t want to play a game thinking about averages, strike rates and all that stuff. We are thinking about what impact a person can create in a situation. That is going to be important for this T20 side.
“With time, T20 cricket will evolve and if we as coaches don’t evolve, we will be behind the eight ball. We want to be ahead of times and that is exactly how these young boys have adapted. Hopefully they will continue adapting and evolving in the future.”
Gambhir has been known to take an unusual approach to batting lineups in T20 cricket. As captain of Kolkata Knight Riders, Gambhir famously promoted Sunil Narine, who was hardly known for his batting prowess, all the way to the top of the order. It ended up being a key component of the two titles KKR won under his captaincy and Narine had been a fixture in the opening slot for many years since.
