‘Too much chopping and changing’: Shane Watson unpacks why Gautam Gambhir's India have been inconsistent and what’s holding them back
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‘Too much chopping and changing’: Shane Watson unpacks why Gautam Gambhir's India have been inconsistent and what’s holding them back originally appeared on Cricket News. Add Cricket News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Shane Watson says too much rotation and batting-order shuffling is hurting India’s white-ball consistency.
- He praised Gautam Gambhir for backing senior players and Sanju Samson through pressure moments.
- Watson calls India’s batting depth staggering, saying continuity would make them hard to beat.
Why India is inconsistent: Shane Watson evaluates Gautam Gambhir's coaching and squad rotation
Shane Watson thinks India’s biggest problem is not a lack of talent, but simply too much tinkering.
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On a podcast hosted by Ollie Silverton, with Brett Lee as a guest, he gave his view on India’s recent white-ball form under head coach Gautam Gambhir. His diagnosis was blunt: constant squad rotation and batting-order reshuffles are why the team keeps swinging between brilliant and bland.
Silverton set the scene by running through India’s recent results. They’d lost 2-0 to Ireland and 4-0 to England in the limited-overs games, then beaten Zimbabwe and Afghanistan, and were now up against the West Indies.
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He pointed to Shubman Gill’s double century of 233 off 133 balls, and added that India needed every run of it, because they’d conceded 400 with three West Indian batters hitting hundreds. Australia visit India in January, straight after New Zealand, so he wanted to know which names Watson was watching closely.
Before the criticism, Watson made a point of giving Gambhir credit. He said the head coach had brought plenty of positives to the Indian set-up, especially his faith in senior players and in match-winners. Samson, whom Watson knows well from their Rajasthan Royals days, was his primary example.
"There's been a lot of incredible things that Gautam Gambhir has brought to the Indian setup," he began.
"There is no question: the backing of senior players, the backing of players like, Sanju Samson, who I know very well, playing with him at RR and staying in contact with.
"He has done wonders for Sanju Samson and backed him, and he repaid, like he did some amazing things in that T20 World Cup right at the back end of that tournament. So there's a lot of great things that Gautam Gambhir, has brought."
Why does Watson say India’s batting order is unsettled?
Watson said the one thing that keeps showing up is a team that never seems settled. Players drift in and out of the XI, and the batting order gets reshuffled almost every game.
"The thing that you continue to see is just people chopping and changing around the batting order all the time and players coming in and out," he opined. "And when it's the team's unsettled, whether it's where you're batting in the batting order or whether you're coming in and out, that just makes it more, it makes it more difficult to be more consistent."
None of this, Watson stressed, is about a shortage of ability. In T20 and one-day cricket, he thinks India could pick another squad entirely and still dominate.
“They could put another maybe 14 players and field them out in international cricket and these players would dominate. There is so much ridiculous skill batting-wise, especially in India, it’s mind-blowing,” Watson said.
He used Gill as his example. Watson called him one of the most beautiful batters to watch, someone who scores quickly and had just made that big double hundred in rapid time. Yet Gill, he noted, isn’t always part of India’s T20 side.
He added: "Think about Shubman Gill. Shubman Gill, he's as good as they're; I believe he's one of the most beautiful batters to watch, scores very fast, scored that 230 in very quick time, right? He he's other formats, he's like he's not always like in, he's not in their T20 team."
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Watson accepted that India play all year round, so rotation is inevitable. Even so, he wants more stability.
"Yeah. So, so that's where for me India: they aren't haven't been performing at their best, and my belief is it's just there's too much there's too much chopping and changing around the players. I understand that they play all year round," he said.
"So, they do need to rotate the players and keep them fresh, but still they just need there to be a little bit more continuity there. And when, if, uh, scary for the rest of the world, if they do that, it's going to be really it's going to be ridiculously hard to beat."
Gambhir’s ‘batting order is overrated’ view: How India’s experiments have played out in white-ball cricket
Gambhir, for his part, has made no secret of his thinking. He's argued that, beyond the two openers, batting orders in white-ball cricket are overrated.
In his view, each ball is its own event, so players should be used where they do the most damage rather than where they protect their averages. He’s also said that teams sticking to a strict one-to-seven line-up end up behind the eight ball.
“Batting orders are very overrated, except the two openers. The rest, I think, shuffle because it’s not the amount of runs that matters in T20I cricket. It’s the impact that matters. People sometimes miscalculate or do not differentiate between runs and impact. In T20Is, it’s all about impact; it’s 120 balls; each ball is an event. And that’s why every ball needs to have the maximum impact we can have. That’s the reason, from day one, we’ve had a very fluid batting order. And that’s how we want to play this game as well.
“We don’t want to play this game thinking about averages and strike rates and all that stuff. We are thinking about how much impact a player can make in what situation. I think that’s going to be very important for this team,” he said after India’s 2-1 series triumph in Australia.
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KL Rahul, a very steady ODI No. 5 by all accounts, was pushed down so left-hander Axar Patel could bat at five. Washington Sundar has been tried anywhere from three to eight, with Gambhir saying, “I know it’s tough on someone like Washi, but... that’s the kind of character we want in that dressing room, who are willing to do everything for the team with a smile on his face.”
The T20I top four has been just as fluid. Sanju Samson, Shivam Dube and Tilak Varma have each been sent up the order as pinch-hitters. And India often prefer a left-right pairing, so a left-hander like Rinku Singh (when selected), Axar or Washington can arrive early to counter off-spin.
Critics, including Watson and former India player Kris Srikkanth, say this is the root of the problem. Players lose their sense of role, and finishers can end up rebuilding while accumulators face the death overs cold.
Continuity or flexibility? Why India needs a bit of both
Watson makes a fair point, and so does Gambhir. That’s what makes this argument so tricky.
Flexibility has real value in T20 cricket. Matchups matter, and a left-hander walking in against a lone off-spinner can swing an over. Nobody should expect a modern coach to ignore that.
But there’s a cost, and Watson spelt it out well. Batting is partly mental. If a player doesn’t know whether he’s walking in at three or seven, he can’t prepare properly, and one low score starts to feel like a verdict on his place. When the XI also keeps changing, confidence gets shaky.
India’s depth makes the temptation to tinker obvious. With so many good options, why not rotate? Yet depth should be a safety net, not an excuse for constant change.
If India can fix the top four and give each player a clear role they can own, there will be a sense of calm. Then use flexibility lower down, where pinch-hitting and matchup calls make the most sense. Keep a settled core, rest players when the calendar demands it, and let the same names play together often enough to build trust.
Do that, and Watson’s “scarily” good India might finally turn up every week.
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