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Harbhajan Singh shoots BCCI warning against split coaching, demands patience for Gautam Gambhir: ‘No need to do it’
The split coaching decision has been a big debate within Indian cricket circles, but Harbhajan believes the cricket structure isn't ready for that change.
The idea of split coaching has become a big talking point within Indian cricket. While the BCCI has preferred to maintain a singular coach to link together the three formats, Gautam Gambhir’s white-ball expertise and relative newness to red-ball cricket as a tactician has led to many calling for acceptance of split coaching.
After India’s dual home series losses to New Zealand in 2024 and South Africa in 2025, the pressure has been on Gambhir to find results to hold on to his role. While the Indian coach will receive a strong rope due to his successes in white ball tournaments, the red-ball failures have weighed heavily on his tenure.
Gambhir has received as much support as he has criticism, with a realisation that there are set to be teething issues for a new coach with quite a young team that is in transition. Gambhir’s former teammates in particular have shown him support and asked for time to be given to him.
Amongst these has been Harbhajan Singh, who once again came out to give his batting to the Indian coach. Speaking to ANI, Harbhajan said: "It is not that easy to become a coach of India. To be a coach, you have to travel with the team for a whole year and keep yourself involved in the game. You have to be more engaged because there are multiple team selections, and you also need to focus on match results.”
‘In India, our tradition…’
Harbhajan also demanded that while criticism might be fair, it must also come with the counter-balance of giving Gambhir his flowers when his teams do succeed: “In India, it is our tradition that if the team plays well, everyone is quiet, but as soon as the team plays poorly, we get on top of the coach.”
Finally, Harbhajan weighed in by saying that split coaching would be a big call for the BCCI to make. The cautions against split coaching includes the idea that segregating focus across two or three different coaches could cause miscommunications and inefficiencies, with having one central coach to control the team across formats simply being more straightforward.
“Everyone needs to be patient. If you feel you need to split the coaching, such as adopting a policy of one white ball and one red ball, then there is no need to do so for now,” said Harbhajan. But over time, if needed, you should definitely do it. There is nothing wrong with that.”
Gambhir’s next big test will be the home ICC T20 World Cup, which India enter as defending champions: anything short of lifting the trophy might be seen as a failure, and only put more cracks in Gambhir’s resume heading into 2026.
