Gautam Gambhir: Man with the 'Midas Touch' does it again
Ahmedabad (PTI): There is a very thin line between bullishness and conviction and Gautam Gambhir often operates somewhere in between.
He has a way of getting things done and Sunday was another great example of doing enough to
History will judge whether he was a great tactician but with two ICC white-ball trophies in consecutive years, there is not an iota of doubt that Gambhir is India's most successful men's cricket team head coach.
And not just that, perhaps he is also Indian cricket's most talked about coach, who can polarise opinions.
No coach has divided opinions since Greg Chappell did at the start of the millennium.
Yet, Chappell became the pantomime villain back in the day, who was unceremoniously dumped.
However in case of Gambhir, despite underwhelming show in Test cricket, tough calls taken with regards to super seniors, he always had the backing of men who mattered in the BCCI boardroom.
He has endured the wrath of social media, at times even unreal hate and endless conjecture, but his grit has always mirrored the resolve he showed while batting for two days to save a Test for India in Napier.
Gambhir's bullishness is an extension of his persona -- a very Delhi trait that he imbibed once he realised that “good boys” rarely survive the test of time in capital cricket.
Despite hailing from a super-rich family, little came easy for Gambhir. In the crocodile-infested waters of DDCA politics, performance was the only currency that kept him relevant.
He has always been fiercely opinionated. His decisions as a player, captain and now coach may have been right or wrong, but the conviction behind them was unmistakable.
It came from a place of honesty and self-belief, reinforced by a strong sense of right and wrong.
If he believed that Ajay Jadeja had no place in the Delhi Ranji Trophy nets due to his alleged involvement in match-fixing, he was hellbent on not entering the nets till the former India all-rounder resigned.
As a Delhi captain, he fought with curators, administrators, selectors for players he believed in. He never cared who was in-front of him -- whether it was Bishan Bedi or Chetan Chauhan as long as he knew that what he said and felt made sense.
If he believed that a young Suryakumar Yadav was his trump card when he was KKR skipper, he backed him to the hilt.
And when he became the India head coach, he believed that Surya was the right man to take Rohit Sharma's legacy forward and not Hardik Pandya, who seemed to be injury prone.
If he felt that Ishan Kishan was needed for the T20 World Cup, he would ask for it. If he felt that Harshit Rana has raw talent and Washington Sundar is an all-rounder that India will need in the next 10 years, he would listen to no one.
His captaincy was very instinctive and his coaching tenure whether for Lucknow Super Giants or KKR and now for India have been based on gut feel more than pure data.
There are coaches who set up players for failure but no one can accuse Gambhir of possessing that vile trait. He would rather take a few bullets for under-performing players, back them till they are back to their best.
A case in point was Abhishek Sharma in the T20 World Cup. Varun Chakravarthy had a poor tournament by his standards but enjoyed Gambhir's unflinching support.
When Rinku Singh's father passed away, Gambhir never asked for a replacement as he wanted his player to be back with his team.
His facial contours would rarely give away as to what he is thinking or how he is feeling. A man of few words when he played for India but a coach who would always goad his boys to play for the flag.
T20 is a format which Gambhir always understood like the back of his palm and even in the coming days, this is the format where one would see him excel as a coach.
Whether he can carry this 'Midas Touch' into 50 over and Tests is a million dollar question. If that happens, Indian cricket will reach heights, it has never seen before.
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Rupee crashes 46 paise to 92.28 against US dollar in early trade, nears all-time low
Mumbai (PTI): The rupee plummeted 46 paise to near its all-time intra-day low of 92.28 against the US dollar in early trade on Monday as global crude oil prices shot up and the greenback strengthened amid the worsening situation in the Middle East.
Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was trading higher by a staggering 25.68 per cent at USD 116.5 per barrel in futures trade as the war between US-Israel and Iran intensified.
A big surge in FII outflows and a crash at the domestic equity market in morning trade put further pressure in the local unit, forex traders said.
At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened at 92.22 against the US dollar before declining further to 92.28, down 46 paise from its previous close. The rupee had hit an all-time intra-day low of 92.35 on March 4.
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The rupee depreciated 18 paise against the US dollar on Friday to close at 91.82 against the American currency.
"The rupee will remain vulnerable to the rising oil prices which have risen by more than 28 per cent since the last closure on Friday. Asian currencies were also lower on Monday," Anil Kumar Bhansali, Head of Treasury and Executive Director, Finrex Treasury Advisors LLP, said.
Rupee might touch 93.00 if oil remains above USD 100 in the coming trading sessions, he added.
The dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading 0.66 per cent higher at 99.64.
On the domestic equity market front, the Sensex crashed 2,345.89 points to 76,573.01 in early trade, while Nifty tumbled 708.75 points to 23,741.70.
Foreign institutional investors sold equities worth Rs 6,030.38 crore on a net basis on Friday, according to exchange data.
Meanwhile, India's forex reserves jumped USD 4.885 billion to an all-time high of USD 728.494 billion during the week ended February 27, the Reserve Bank said on Friday.
