India coach Gautam Gambhir, who is known to give credit to teamwork instead of focussing on individual feats, gave a curt reply to a question on his reaction to Rishabh Pant’s twin centuries in India’s loss in the 1st Test against England at Leeds on Tuesday.
“There are three more centuries as well. Those are big positives as well. Thank you,” he said in the post-match press conference.
“I would have liked if you said there was a hundred from Yashasvi (Jaiswal), hundred from Shubman (Gill) on debut as captain. (There was a) hundred from KL (Rahul) and two centuries from Rishabh, so five centuries in a Test match is a great start to be honest. And hopefully the question could have been better,” he added.
Reporter: Positive by Rishabh Pant 2 centuries, How was it to witness the vice-captain scoring two centuries ?
Gautam Gambhir: Jaiswal, Gill, and Rahul have also scored centuries. pic.twitter.com/X8aU9FY74c
— RP17 Gang™ (@RP17Gang) June 25, 2025
He also pointed out that individual performances count for little if the end result is a loss. India went down by five wickets despite setting England a stiff target of 371.
“But again these are great positives, we had a fifer from Jasprit Bumrah as well. Eventually everything boils down to the fact that…we go out there to get the results,” he said.
“Yes, Individual performances are good, we want those big runs from our top six, seven which we got in this Test match. But at the end of the day you go out there to win a Test match. Unfortunately that wasn’t the result. So we take it on the chin and move forward,” he added.
Gambhir also come out in support of their bowlers and said the current bowling group is highly inexperienced but talented, they need to be backed.
“This bowling attack has one bowler with five Tests under his belt, one has four, one has played two and one hasn’t yet debuted,” said Gambhir in the post-match presser.
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“We will have to give them time. Earlier, we used to have four fast bowlers in the squad with an experience of more than 40 Tests. It doesn’t make such a big impact in one-day or T20 matches, but when you go to Australia, England or South Africa for Tests, experience matters. These are early days. If we start judging our bowlers after every Test, how will be develop a bowling attack? Outside Bumrah and (Mohammad) Siraj, we don’t have that much experience, but they have quality, which is why they are in this dressing room. But we have got to keep backing them because it’s not about one tour. It’s about building a fast-bowler battery that can serve India for long time in Test cricket,” he added.
