Sourav Ganguly has dismissed calls to sack Gautam Gambhir after India’s Eden Gardens defeat. He believes better pitches, patience and clearer planning are the real priorities as India look to correct recurring Test-match flaws.
Former India captain and current Cricket Association of Bengal president Sourav Ganguly has strongly backed head coach Gautam Gambhir amid the rising noise after India’s loss to South Africa in the opening Test at Eden Gardens. The defeat has sparked scrutiny over India’s preparation and approach, but Ganguly insists that any talk of removing Gambhir is premature and unwarranted.
In an exclusive interaction with India Today’s Rajdeep Sardesai, the Cricket Association of Bengal President stressed that India must look at the broader picture instead of resorting to extreme reactions. He argued that the team needs to realign its mindset and focus on playing on better, more balanced pitches in the future while trusting the coach–captain combination to turn things around.
“No, no, there’s no question of sacking out of Gautam Gambhir at this stage, but I think as a team, they need to get together and say to themselves that we will work hard to win Test matches because on flat pitches, it’s a lot harder because the opposition will pad, there’ll be big runs scored on the first innings of each team. And in India, surprisingly, you’ll see how the game changes quickly on day four, day five.”
Ganguly added that India have the personnel to compete on proper Test surfaces and have shown they can take 20 wickets even abroad.
“So they have to be patient on that. As I said, they have the bowling attack to get 20 wickets as you saw at the Oval on the last day, as you saw in Edgbaston during that series (vs England), so they can do that as well. Swing comes into play in India with the ball getting old. So it’s just a mindset change.”
He reiterated his belief in Gambhir and captain Shubman Gill, pointing to their recent success in England.
“And you know, Gautam as a coach and Shubman as a captain did exceptionally well in England on good batting pitches. And I firmly believe that they can do well in India as well.”
Ganguly’s remarks also align with what he told India Today shortly after the loss, when he acknowledged that the Eden Gardens pitch “was far from perfect” but insisted that the bigger focus for India must be balance, execution and clarity of plans rather than finger-pointing.
India’s defeat also marked their second-lowest failed chase at home, sharpening focus on a pattern that has now seen India lose 9 of 18 Tests under Gambhir’s tenure — many of them shaped by batting collapses on helpful bowling surfaces. After restricting South Africa to a chaseable 124, India’s batting imploded again, bowled out for 93 and unable to handle the turn and variable bounce with the control required.
Proteas captain, Temba Bavuma’s gritty half-century stood out as the clearest template for how to survive and score on that pitch, while India’s top and middle order folded under sustained pressure — a collapse that echoed their struggles in New Zealand last year, where slow, turning surfaces exposed the same technical frailties.
