Every Coach Gambhir Picked Is Either Fired or Walking Out — He Built a Unit, Now He's Alone in It

On July 9, 2024, Gautam Gambhir walked into the India head coach's office with a plan. He'd hand-pick his own people. No holdovers from the Dravid era. No compromise appointments. His men, his system, his accountability.

He chose four: Abhishek Nayar as batting coach, Morne Morkel as bowling coach, Ryan ten Doeschate as assistant coach, and retained T Dilip as fielding coach. The unit was presented to the media as a tight-knit, no-nonsense group built on personal trust.

Twenty-four months later, every single one of them is either already gone or heading for the exit. And Gambhir — contract running until 2027 — is the last man standing in a setup he built from scratch.

Abhishek Nayar didn't even make it to the first anniversary. Gambhir's close friend and former Mumbai Indians teammate was installed as batting coach in July 2024, but by March 2025 he was gone — axed after the Border-Gavaskar Trophy disaster in Australia, where India's batting collapsed so spectacularly that the BCCI needed a visible sacrifice.

Sitanshu Kotak, the former Saurashtra batter and NCA coach, was brought in as replacement. A quieter appointment. A safer one. The kind of hire you make when the previous choice was too personal.

That was supposed to be the reset. One bad apple, now replaced. The rest of the unit would hold. It didn't.

T Dilip survived the Nayar purge in early 2025, but his reprieve was temporary. India's fielding — once transformed under his watch during the 2023 World Cup cycle — has deteriorated so visibly that the BCCI can no longer ignore it.

The dropped catches in the England T20I series were damning. Dube's muffed chance at Southampton that let Brook reach 95 not out was only the most high-profile example. The internal assessment has been brutal.

Morne Morkel is the most complicated departure. Unlike Nayar (fired) and Dilip (pushed out), the former South African fast bowler is leaving on his own terms — or at least considering it. His contract expires at the end of the England ODI series, and the BCCI is actively trying to persuade him to stay.

So far, Morkel hasn't committed to an extension. The board is bracing for the worst and has already identified Lakshmipathy Balaji — the newly appointed Centre of Excellence fast-bowling coach — as the frontrunner to step in if Morkel walks.

Ryan ten Doeschate's situation is perhaps the most telling. The Dutch all-rounder turned coach isn't being pushed — he's choosing to leave. The unrelenting year-round travel schedule of international cricket has taken its toll, and he's reportedly already in discussions with an IPL franchise about a return to the franchise circuit.

There's an uncomfortable irony here. Gambhir recruited ten Doeschate precisely because of his understanding of modern white-ball cricket and T20 franchise culture. Now that same franchise culture is pulling him away from the national setup.

Step back and look at the sequence. Gambhir builds a coaching team in July 2024. Eight months later, his batting coach is sacked. Fourteen months after that, his fielding coach is being shown the door. His bowling coach and assistant coach are both weighing exits. And the BCCI is organizing a formal review meeting for July 19 — three days after today's 2nd ODI in Cardiff — to interrogate the entire coaching operation.

The review isn't just about the 0-4 T20I whitewash in England or the 0-2 shock in Ireland. It's about a systemic question: if a head coach hand-picks every member of his support staff, and every single one of them either gets fired or wants to leave within two years, what does that say about the setup?

Here's the strange part: Gambhir himself isn't in immediate danger. His contract runs until 2027, and the BCCI has been careful to frame the upcoming review as about the 'team's performance' rather than the coach's position. VVS Laxman coaching the Zimbabwe tour was presented as Gambhir getting a 'break,' not a trial separation.

But the ground beneath him has shifted completely. Every trusted lieutenant he brought in is either already gone or packing bags. When Gambhir walks into whatever dressing room awaits after this England tour, the faces around him won't be his picks. They'll be the BCCI's picks. Kotak replacing Nayar. Balaji potentially replacing Morkel. Unknown quantities replacing Dilip and ten Doeschate.

A head coach without his own coaching staff isn't a head coach in any meaningful sense. He's a figurehead with a title and a contract, sitting in meetings with people he didn't choose, running systems he didn't design.

The BCCI's 'course correction' meeting after the ODI series ends will be the moment of reckoning — not just for Gambhir, but for the entire philosophy of letting coaches build their own setups. Secretary Devajit Saikia has promised no 'knee-jerk decisions,' but the decisions have already been made. Nayar is gone. Dilip is going. The only question is whether Morkel and ten Doeschate can be convinced to stay — or whether Gambhir walks into his third year as India head coach with an entirely new support staff that the board assembled, not him.

He wanted autonomy. He got it. And the unit he built with that autonomy lasted shorter than most bilateral series calendars.