From Wankhede cheers to Guwahati jeers: How Gautam Gambhir became the lightning rod for India’s Test identity crisis

From the moment Gautam Gambhir stepped out near the boundary rope in Guwahati, it was clear this was not going to be just another bad day at the office. The floodlights were on, but the stadium felt dimmed by the weight of a 408-run defeat, India’s biggest-ever loss by runs in Tests, and the noise that rose from the stands was not applause or even polite disappointment. It was a chant, sharp and personal, cutting through the night: “Gautam Gambhir haye haye.” For a man who once made his name quietening hostile crowds, it was a strange, almost surreal reversal — the hero of Wankhede suddenly cast as the villain of Barsapara.

A man alone in a crowded stadium

If you freeze one of the viral videos from that evening, Gambhir looks almost small against the banking terraces, a compact figure walking with shoulders stiff as security and support staff shadow his every step. Somewhere behind him, Mohammed Siraj gestures angrily at the crowd to stop, while batting coach Sitanshu Kotak pleads with fans to remember “how much he has done for India.” But the chants do not stop; they crest and fall like a wave, the sound of anger looking for a face to land on. 

This is the first Test Guwahati has ever hosted, and instead of a historic win to remember, the home fans are left with a scoreline that feels like a scar. South Africa’s 489, built on Senuran Muthusamy’s calm hundred and Marco Jansen’s brutal 93, turned into a mountain India never really looked like climbing. By the final session, it was no longer about this one innings or this one match. It was about something deeper: a feeling that the old certainty — India don’t get humiliated at home — had been shaken, and someone had to answer for that.

The weight of old memories

Part of why the backlash feels so raw is because of what Gambhir represents in Indian cricket’s emotional archive. Fans remember the 75 in Johannesburg in 2007, punched through the line in a World T20 final that changed the country’s relationship with the format. They remember the 97 in the 2011 World Cup final, the innings that steadied a nation before the famous six went into the Mumbai night. Even when cameras stopped following his footwork and started tracking his words, Gambhir built a second life as a straight-talking TV voice and a mentor who helped Kolkata Knight Riders rediscover their edge.

So, when he returned as India head coach, there was a sense of storybook symmetry: the big match specialist now in charge of delivering more big moments. White-ball trophies and an impressive campaign in England seemed to confirm the script. But Test cricket at home has written a different ending so far — two whitewashes in three series, ten losses in eighteen matches, and a fan base that no longer sees Gambhir as the man in the shadows behind someone else’s glory, but as the first name on the charge sheet.

The noise that won’t stay online 

In another era, this might have stayed a debate for newspaper columns and drawing rooms. Instead, it has become a full-blown spectacle. Iceland Cricket’s tongue-in-cheek post, proclaiming that Gambhir “will not be invited” to coach them and mocking India’s home record, was the spark that turned frustration into ridicule. Screens filled with memes, edited clips, and sarcastic references to “transition” and “temperament,” as if every quote was raw material for a punchline.

Guwahati showed how little separates the virtual and the real now. The chant that began on timelines rolled off real tongues; the criticism that might once have been wrapped in polite language hit the air with no filter. For Gambhir, whose own public persona was built on saying the unsayable on television, it is a brutal irony: the same bluntness that made him a cult figure on screen now makes it harder for people to extend him the benefit of doubt when results go wrong.

The coach who says the blame begins with him
 
In the press conference that followed, Gambhir sat under the bright lights and did not flinch from the obvious question. “The blame lies with everyone and starts with me,” he said, repeating the line often enough that it felt less like spin and more like a shield he’d decided to wear. He reminded everyone that he is “the same guy who got results in England” and oversaw a Champions Trophy and Asia Cup win, almost as if he needed to reintroduce himself to a public that had decided it no longer recognized him.

There was no attempt to hide behind individual mistakes. From 95 for 1 to 122 for 7 is “not acceptable,” he said, but he refused to name names, insisting that several of his batters have not even played 15 Tests and are learning on the job. He admitted he hates the word “transition,” yet that is clearly how he sees this phase — a group of half-formed careers being accelerated through fire, while the outside world demands fully formed greatness every time 
they walk out.

A different kind of advice from an old hand
 
Watching from the commentary box, another former India coach, Ravi Shastri, chose a very different angle. Trailing South Africa’s 489, with the pitch starting to wear, Shastri suggested on air that Gambhir and India might have to do something deeply unfashionable: bat fast, take risks, and consider declaring 80, 90, even 100 runs behind just to force a result. “You’ve got to take those chances,” he said. “You can’t wait to bat and go past 489, that’ll take a long time.” 

It was classic Shastri — bold, bordering on reckless — but beneath the bravado lay a quiet empathy. He knows, perhaps better than anyone, what it is like to sit in that chair and feel every move dissected in real time. His advice was as much to Gambhir the coach as to India the team: sometimes, when the narrative is turning against you, the only way to change it is to seize the plot with both hands and live with the consequences.
 
Not everybody wants his head

Inside the dressing room, the mood is more nuanced than the stands or the timeline suggest. R Ashwin, who has seen more coaching regimes than most, stepped up with a defence that was as carefully worded as it was sharp. Gambhir is “not my relative,” he said, making it clear this was not blind loyalty, but he pushed back against the idea that everything from selection to shot choice could be dumped on one man. Players, he argued, have to own the collapse as much as anyone sitting in the dugout.

At the same time, former pacer Venkatesh Prasad and other commentators have not been shy about pointing out where they think Gambhir has erred: too much chopping and changing, too much faith in bits-and-pieces options, not enough respect for the rhythm of Test cricket. The result is a strange kind of echo chamber, where the coach is simultaneously defended as a convenient scapegoat and held up as a symbol of everything that feels confused about India’s red-ball project.
 
The human being under the label

Strip away the hashtags and headlines, and what remains is a 44-year-old man who built his life on being more stubborn than the situation in front of him. This is someone who batted through migraines, who took body blows in New Zealand and South Africa, who often seemed more comfortable fighting than celebrating. Now he finds himself in a different kind of fight, one that cannot be won with a single innings or a single tactical masterstroke.

He is dealing with a fan culture that has grown up on near-invincibility at home, a board that expects instant course correction, and a playing group caught between the shadows of legends and the demands of a new era. In quieter moments, it is not hard to imagine him replaying decisions in his head: a selection here, a field change there, a press-conference phrase that could have been softened. But Gambhir has never really been the guy who softens edges; his entire story has been about leaning into them.
 
More than a story about one man
 
In the end, Guwahati is less an indictment of one coach and more a mirror held up to Indian cricket. It shows how quickly admiration can turn into impatience, how fragile the aura of home dominance really was, and how small the margin for error has become in a world where every over is watched, clipped, and judged. The chants, the memes, the think pieces — they all say as much about the people reacting as they do about the man at the center of the storm. 

For now, Gambhir remains where he has always been in the line of fire, refusing to step aside or talk around the issue. “Indian cricket is important, I’m not important,” he said when asked about his future, a sentence that can read either as humility or as a dare. Somewhere between those two lies the true human story — of a once-beloved hero trying to rebuild something far more fragile than a batting order: the trust of a country that is still learning how to live with its team’s bad days, and with its own anger.