Sunil Gavaskar lashes out at players for feud with Anil Kumble

20th June 2017 will go down as a rather sad day for Indian cricket history as the legendary cricketer, Anil Kumble stepped down as the head coach of the Indian Cricket Team. This happened after Indian team sans their coach and left for the West Indies from London.

In his stint of one year, Kumble has produced some remarkable records and has lift India to a new stratum. His one year tenure started with a Test series against West Indies which Team India won convincingly and ended with being the finalists of Champions Trophy 2017.

Anil Kumble ‘hard task master’ believes Sunil Gavaskar

Sunil Gavaskar, former Indian captain and present voice of Indian cricket in the commentary box was saddened to hear this news and came down heavily on the reports. He believes that Kumble was a ‘hard task master’ which eventually didn’t go well for some of the Indian players.

“So you want softies. You want somebody to just tell you, ‘ok boys, don’t practice today because you guys are not feeling well, ok take a holiday, go shopping’. You want that kind of a person. If somebody is a hard taskmaster and he has got you results like Anil Kumble has got over the last one year. If any of the players are complaining, I feel those players are the ones who should be left out of the team,” Gavaskar was quoted as saying by NDTV.

Terming his term as ‘phenomenal’ the former Indian captain further added, “Because honestly, what Anil Kumble has achieved for India as a player and what he has achieved for India over the last one year, has been nothing short of phenomenal. So I would rather not have Anil Kumble being maligned or being bad-mouthed as a hard taskmaster or his headmasterly approach for what I have been reading in the papers.”

“But what this is sending a signal for the next coach is either bow down to what the players want you to do, otherwise you, like one of India’s cricket legends Anil Kumble, you will have to step down and that is a sad, sad, sad message,” Gavaskar added.

What’s between Virat and Kumble

As Anil Kumble mentioned in his last letter about ‘Captain’ not being happy with his style of coaching, Gavaskar was asked whether Virat sent a negative signal, to which he said, “Once the CAC (the Cricket Advisory Committee) had given its ok, I would have thought that Anil would carry on. I have very little idea about the differences between the two (Kohli and Kumble), if at all there were any differences, but it is a sad day because he has been one of the greatest cricketers that India has produced and for him to not want to do the job for whatever reason, and perhaps he might come up with the reasons over the next couple of days but that is really sad for Indian cricket.”

Elaborating the differences between Virat Kohli and Anil Kumble, Gavaskar went onto add that, “There will always be differences in a group of more than two or three people. That’s bound to happen when you are in a tense situation… India has won everything since the time Anil took over. I can’t see Kumble doing much wrong in one year and the only reason this kind of a day has come is clearly because there has to be something which didn’t quite gel in that group.”

About Next Coach

Asking about who does he feel is fit in the shoes of Anil Kumble for a minimum period of three years he said,” I don’t know who will fill his shoes. Maybe for the moment in the West Indies, you will just have somebody like a Sanjay Bangar who is very well respected in the team to take over because it is a short trip but before India goes to Sri Lanka, the coach has to be appointed. It could well be Sanjay Bangar again, although he has not thrown his hat in the ring. Because he has got the experience of coaching. It is for the CAC to take a call on that.”