Former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar refused to put the blame on head coach Gautam Gambhir after the Test series loss New Zealand on Saturday. India suffered a first series loss at home after 12 years as New Zealand took an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series after winning the Pune Test by 113 runs. India captain Rohit Sharma‘s approach was heavily criticised by fans and experts, while head coach Gambhir also faced flak on social media. However, Sanjay Manjrekar also opined that the blame of this loss cannot be put on the shoulders of Gambhir as the coach has a “minimal influence on the team”.
“I will still maintain that the coach has the minimal influence on a team. He does not set foot on the ground, the captain is in-charge out there. But you have to applaud him for Washington Sundar‘s selection, which was an immediate hit. But the move to send him ahead of Sarfaraz Khan or maybe four spinners here would have made more sense. But to put any kind of responsibility on the door of Gautam Gambhir would be terribly unfair because until now we can’t do it because in cricket, a coach has minimal influence on performances,” Manjrekar told ESPNcricinfo.
Meanwhile, former wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik believes the onus for the Test series loss to New Zealand rests with the senior Indian players.
Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli struggled with the bat, while the formidable spin duo of R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja also failed to make a significant impact.
“Yeah. Why shouldn’t it (the onus of the series loss) be the senior players? They will look at themselves and say, ‘What could we have done better?’ I don’t think they have run away from it,” Karthik said on ‘Cricbuzz’.
“If you can celebrate the highs and the fans enjoy how important they are, when the team wins, then when the losses happen, and the brick bats are thrown at you I think they will have the courage to face it,” he added.
“If you go and ask each one of them personally, what they think of the series I don’t think they’ll have great things to say about how the whole team played, and it is only but fair to ask them questions about what can be done better for future of Test cricket in India and for Indian Test cricket.
“So, knowing them personally, and I do know each one of them personally. They will say that they didn’t have the best series. The question then becomes what do they need to do to get better and it is a very very current question to ask,” he detailed.
(With PTI Inputs)