Former Indian keeper-batter and commentator Deep Dasgupta has asserted that the Indian head coach Gautam Gambhir must be frustrated by the Indian players’ fitness issues since the ICC T20 World Cup 2026 campaign.
After the conclusion of the IPL 2026 season, several key Indian players missed important series due to injuries. Players like Varun Chakravarthy, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Washington Sundar, Harshit Rana and Nitish Kumar Reddy missed multiple series so far.
“The next big assignment is New Zealand, for which you want all your pacers ready so that you can choose from that. But knowing who’ll be fit and ready with competitive matches under their belts is important. So I can understand Gautam Gambhir’s frustration and the same with the captain as well. So it’s important for the key stakeholders to understand what the coach and the captain want,” Deep Dasgupta said on his YouTube channel.
“It is very important to understand what the coach and captain want. They are the two who drive the Indian team. The others are support staff who only play a supporting role. Hence, I can understand why Gautam Gambhir must be angered by the injury issues. You can’t form a team properly and plan things for a period of time without knowing who the players available are,” he added.
Furthermore, Deep Dasgupta also shared his views on the Indian team’s packed international schedule. The former stumper suggested that prioritizing the format whose ICC event is around the corner could be a proper solution.
“This is going to be a practical challenge in the future. Indian team is very important in the cricketing ecosystem, and they have to play for the economics of the sport. The sport will die if thought isn’t put on its economics. Those economics dictate that the Indian team needs to play more cricket than the other teams. So being ready for the scheduling challenges is going to be important,” said Dasgupta.
“What you can do is prioritize the format for which the World Cup is coming up. That’ll help manage when the formats are clashing at any time. The clash is going to be there however much you plan. Planning this way is important. This scheduling challenge will be there, and how you plan will matter,” he concluded.
India’s squad for Afghanistan T20I series: Shreyas Iyer [C], Abhishek Sharma, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Sanju Samson [WK], Ishan Kishan [WK], Tilak Varma [VC], Shivam Dube, Nitish Kumar Reddy*, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar*, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Jasprit Bumrah*, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana*
NOTE: * Subject to fitness clearance
