'Nothing changes' - Gautam Gambhir highlights Virat Kohli's role after captaincy debacle

Former India opener Gautam Gambhir believes that “nothing changes” for Virat Kohli despite the recent captaincy debacle and that his aim should remain to continue winning matches for India.

Kohli announced his decision to step down as India’s Test skipper following the team’s 1-2 Test series defeat against South Africa away from home. He had earlier given up on India’s T20I captaincy in a bid to manage his captaincy workload. As fate would have it, those plans did not quite materialise with Kohli no longer being the team’s skipper in any format as he was seemingly sacked as the ODI captain in between his two voluntary relinquishments.

“Nothing changes,” Gambhir told Sports Today when asked to comment on what as per him would change for Kohli given he is no longer the team’s leader. “When you are growing up as a kid you want to try and win games for the country and that is all that matters. You don’t dream of captaining the side from day one so for me nothing changes. If it does then there is something seriously wrong. Captaincy is just an honour and responsibility and I’m sure Virat would be thinking the same way.”

Templates are very overrated, cricket’s a simple game: Gautam Gambhir

Amidst questions on India’s approach in the 50-over format following their recent 0-3 drubbing at the hands of South Africa following the Test series, Gambhir rubbished the idea of a team needing to follow any templates, which he reckoned as “overrated”, and created by the outsiders.

“I’ve always thought of only one template which is to score the last run if you are chasing and take the last wicket if your defending. As simple as that, there is no other template that makes sense to me. All these are created by the media, the finisher, opener, death bowler and all.

“Cricket is a very simple game. All of us would want that when we are chasing a total, we should score the last run and if we are defending, we should take the last wicket and take the points in our kitty. That is all that matters and the only template. Templates are very overrated,” he said.