Gautam Gambhir vs Brendon McCullum: One backed his vision, the other tore down a system

On an uncharacteristically bright and sunny July afternoon at The Oval, Gautam Gambhir and Brendon McCullum were immersed in what seemed like a non-cricketing discussion barely a few metres away from the pitch where the series finale between England and India was about to be played. If a casual cricket fan was keeping a tab on that India-England series – particularly what had transpired between the two teams in Manchester after Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar refused Ben Stokes' handshake offer, and then in the lead-up to this one between Gambhir and Surrey's curator – he would have rubbed his eyes seeing the very visuals. India's head coach and his counterpart indulging in a tete-a-tete. A regular cricket fan, however, would not.

Brendon McCullum and Gautam Gambhir earlier this year at Leed's(AFP)

Take out their origins and batting styles, and Gambhir and McCullum are largely similar individuals. Brave, outspoken, authoritative, unapologetic and, dare we say, polarising. You will either love them or hate them; there is no chance of ignoring them. Having said that, similar traits were surely not the only reason behind their camaraderie-filled discussion during a heated series. They were teammates at the Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL 2013. KKR is also the franchise that played a key role in giving worldwide recognition to both Gambhir and McCullum as coaches. McCullum was recruited as England's red-ball coach from KKR after IPL 2022, and Gambhir took over from Rahul Dravid after playing a pivotal role in making KKR IPL champions in 2024.

Coaches rarely take the centre stage in cricket, but Gambhir and McCullum do. Their words, actions, team selections, approach and everything else are an advert. At times, you get a feeling that they don't just run the show, but they are the show.

Naturally, there are downsides to this. When the results don't go their way, the backlash is severe, sometimes unforgiving. And in Gambhir and McCullum's tenures, both India and England have seen a fair bit of that.

Even before "Bazball" became part of the cricket dictionary to describe McCullum's (nicknamed "Baz") ultra-aggressive style of play, which many believed was changing the way batters approached Test cricket, there were indications of McCullum's unique methods during his captaincy days for New Zealand. He didn't believe in taking the game deep. Often during an ODI match, McCullum would exhaust the quota of his main bowlers within 40 overs. His thinking was simple: Why wait till the 50th when the job can be done 10 overs earlier? Needless to say, it didn't always succeed, but it was completely south from the accepted norms of ODI cricket.

The first glimpse of his Bazball style of leadership was tasted by the Lahore Qalandars in PSL 2017. After a disastrous inaugural season, in which the league's second-most expensive franchise finished last, McCullum was appointed captain and was also given the additional role of batting consultant. His attack-at-all-costs style proved worse. Lahore Qalandars lost six straight games. Amid severe criticism, McCullum stood down.

This, however, didn't mean McCullum changed his stance. Coach McCullum was fiercer than captain McCullum. He made finisher Dinesh Karthik bat No.3 for KKR and, in his first assignment as an international coach, dared to change the definition of Test cricket and stood by it. What was different in England from Lahore Qalandars and KKR was that he found a captain and a managing director, Ben Stokes and Rob Key, who were completely sold on his ideas. McCullum himself may have doubted his style once, but Stokes and Key? Never!

Did Bazball bring results for England? It did, and it did not. When McCullum assumed charge of England’s Test side, the team under Joe Root and Chris Silverwood was in disarray, managing just one victory in their previous 19 matches. The arrival of the Bazball philosophy sparked a dramatic turnaround, with England playing fearless, attacking cricket and registering eye-catching series wins, most notably in Pakistan and New Zealand. The transformation injected energy and entertainment into a team that had been drifting.

However, the limits of the approach have also been exposed. England continue to struggle against the very best, particularly India and Australia, and upcoming challenges in South Africa could once again put Bazball under scrutiny. While the method has hauled England away from the depths, it has not yet elevated them into the top tier of Test cricket.

The ultra-aggressive mindset has delivered some astonishing fourth-innings chases against India on home soil, but the same tactics have repeatedly backfired in the Ashes in Australia. Conditions that demand patience and adaptability have often punished England’s all-out attacking style, highlighting that Bazball, for all its impact, remains a work in progress rather than a finished formula.

Gambhir missed the target

What about Gambhir? Ironically, before the start of Gambhir's first real test in red-ball cricket at home against New Zealand, he was asked about England's Bazball style. "We want to be that team which can score 400 in a day and bat for two days to salvage a draw," was Gambhir's reply. “And you call that growth, you call that adaptability, you call that Test cricket. If you play only one way, then there is no growth.”

Gambhir's team had shown a penchant for doing the first in the previous Test itself. Despite only 35 overs of play in the first three days of the Test against Bangladesh in Kanpur, India went on to win the match largely because they batted at 8.2 runs per over in their first innings to force a result. With players like Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul in the XI, one can expect a repeat of the same any time. As for batting for two days to save a Test is concerned, there is just one example – in Manchester, when Jadeja and Washington Sundar batted out of their skins to save the match.

Since Gambhir's statement on adaptability, India lost five out of seven Tests at home and conceded the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the first time in more than a decade. Barring the 2-2 draw with a relatively inexperienced Test side in England, Gambhir's style of coaching has been proven dangerously close to catastrophic for Indian cricket.

On top of that, he has been at the forefront of the transition period, a term he seemingly dislikes but often falls back on whenever things go unplanned.

Sure, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma weren't at their best in the longest format, but the two legends definitely deserved a well-planned and better executed farewell, and the less said about forcing Ravichandran Ashwin out of the Test XI, the better it is.

Here is where the differences between Gambhir and McCullum also come. McCullum took charge of only England's Test side, which was down in the dust but Gambhir got a well-oiled Indian machine in all formats. India were the T20 World Cup champions, an unbeatable force in Test matches at home and a very competitive side abroad with Test wins in England, Australia and South Africa.

Under Gambhir, India have only beaten Bangladesh and West Indies at home and even lost an ODI series in Sri Lanka – a first in two and a half decades. But then again, Gambhir is "the same coach who won the Champions Trophy and the Asia Cup." Sure enough, credit where it's due, but even in India's limited-overs units, hardly anybody is assured of a perfect number, let alone a place.

The same Champions Trophy-winning captain, Rohit, gets replaced by Shubman Gill; Sanju Samson, who has scored three centuries while opening the batting in six months of T20I cricket, gets dragged to the middle-order and then out of the XI to accommodate Gill because of the 'one captain for all formats' stance. Sundar is considered Ashwin's replacement, but doesn't get to bowl quite often. Axar Patel bats at No.3 in a 215-run chase in a T20I against South Africa. Arshdeep Singh, the best white-ball pacer after Jasprit Bumrah in the country, is still not guaranteed a spot in the XI. A fit Mohammed Shami doesn't find a place in any format; the list is long, and the list lacks logic, but Gambhir has been adamant.

The BCCI has shown no signs of holding the coach accountable, at least not publicly. With a T20 World Cup in less than two months and fading hopes for a shot at the maiden WTC title, the least Indian cricket fans could hope for is consistency from Gambhir, similar to what McCullum has given England. The results may be frustrating at times, but at least they know what to expect from their team.