Chennai: First Test as head coach and Gautam Gambhir addressed the media the way he likes to, with a straight bat. No beating around the bush with copious mentions of ‘intent’, ‘aggression’ or ‘fearlessness’, nor stressing on ‘process’. Just a succinct brief — anything works as long as India win.

“We want to be a team that adapts and (one) that learns quickly, rather than adopting one style. Because if you start adopting one style, then there is no growth,” Gambhir said here on Wednesday on the eve of the first Test against Bangladesh.

“We want guys to be playing the situation, the conditions, and then keep growing every day. And that is all that matters. You know, all this, giving a name to a certain style and playing only one way – see, ultimately sport is all about results. And the best, the best style is the style that wins.”

These are loaded words, offering an early insight into what Gambhir may want to bring about by way of change. Like reminding the world that Rishabh Pant is not just a batting freak, but also an accomplished wicketkeeper. “Probably his batting overshadows his keeping many times,” said Gambhir. “But actually, see what he’s done in Indian conditions and it’s never easy to keep against people like Ashwin, Jadeja and Kuldeep.” Just the words perhaps to encourage Pant to be a better wicketkeeper to spin?

Nurturing a seam bowling allrounder from the U-19 level? Not my job, says Gambhir. Because, as he rightly pointed out, international cricket is not about developing players. And maybe it’s time India start valuing their spin allrounders more. “We’ve been talking about it since Kapil Dev that we don’t have a fast bowling all-rounder. If we don’t have it, we don’t have it. If we have it, I think he’s going to get developed in first-class cricket. If we can get someone really soon, great for Indian cricket. If we don’t, then we still have quality all-rounders. Tell me how many international sides have a spin bowling all-rounder? India’s got that luxury.”

For long India have sweated over Hardik Pandya’s Test fitness. Even without him, India have been able to build an invincibility relying more on bowlers, something Gambhir believes is changing the narrative in a batting obsessed country.

“It has not happened many times in India where we started talking about the bowler. It has always been about batters, batters and batters,” Gambhir said. “India at one stage was a batting-obsessed nation. And you’ve got to give credit to Bumrah, Shami, Siraj, Ashwin and Jadeja that now they are turning this intention into a bowling obsessed... not bowling-obsessed nation, but that we started talking about the bowler.

“Bumrah is the best fast bowler in the world in all the three formats. And it’s (not) just his performance. It’s just his hunger as well. The best part is that he wants to play as much Test cricket as he can. It’s really an honour that we’ve got someone like Bumrah playing for us and sitting in that dressing room. We can make a change, we can make a difference at any stage of the game. So yes, hopefully we can do the same in this series and going forward as well.”

If further elaboration was needed on how he wants the batters “playing the situation, the conditions” — something India’s batting sans Cheteshwar Pujara isn’t used to these days —here goes Gambhir’s take: “In Test cricket, you have time to defend and get the bowler to play on his own strength. But for that, the most important thing is if you want to play well in Test cricket, how tight is your defence.”

Then comes the cautionary note. “We have played T20 format on so many wickets that sometimes it feels like after developing so many shots, we have a foundation. And that foundation is your defence. When we started, any youngster was taught to defend. If your defence is strong, you can develop everything on that. But if you think you have all kinds of shots and if you want to be a good Test cricketer, there is no guarantee for that. But a good defence can definitely make you a good Test cricketer. So, it is important to work on those small things. Not only as a team, but as individuals as well.”

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