Fear isn't in Gambhir's dictionary. 'Drained' is — and he said so in Hamilton

Gautam Gambhir does not usually do vulnerability. So when he was asked in Hamilton whether the job had worn him down, it was worth noticing that the first word of his answer was yes.

He has been running India across formats, conditions and personalities for months, and the road has no off-season. India played West Indies in Bengaluru on October 17 and New Zealand in Christchurch on October 22. There are seven more internationals on this tour alone.

Then came the Gambhir part of the answer, which is to say the part where he dared anyone to do something about it.

India landed on October 20, practised on October 21 and played on October 22. Gambhir called the first-game win after one practice session part of what made this team ruthless. Then he explained why that argument only works for a winning side.

This is the best thing he said all day. It is also a coach pre-empting a columnist. He knows the preparation story only exists because India went 3-0 up, and he knows what the headline would have been at 0-3.

Gambhir's chosen word was "ruthlessness", and he listed his evidence: the chase of 226, the rescue by three young batters, and 199 hunted down inside 14 overs. Check the margins and only one of those three fits the dictionary.

Wellington was ruthless. Abhishek Sharma's 113 off 38 and a T20I-record 118 for 0 in the powerplay finished the game with 40 balls left. Christchurch was closer to survival. India won the first game with two balls remaining and the second with one, after slipping to 71 for 5 against Mitchell Santner.

That is not a complaint. Winning twice in the last over away from home with a day's preparation is a real achievement, and Tilak Varma, Naman Dhir and Nitish Kumar Reddy deserve the praise for the second of them. Nerve is the better word, though. Ruthless sides do not concede 225 and then need the final over.

Asked about the defeats, Gambhir did not blink. India will keep playing high-risk, high-reward cricket, in his words, whether in England, Australia or India. "You might lose by 100 runs on some days, but on others, you'll chase down 150 in 10 overs," he said.

He barely needed the hypothetical. India made 118 without loss in a powerplay on October 27. On October 30 they lost by 87. Same plan, and that is precisely his point: he is not treating Auckland as a malfunction. It is the known cost of Wellington.

That position is easier to hold with a World Cup in the cabinet. Gambhir made the case himself, noting that Iyer inherited a side that had won the trophy and had not lost a series in two years. Iyer began with two series defeats and now has three bilateral wins, plus a one-off win over Japan and Asian Games gold.

The praise for Iyer was generous and specific. Without Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Harshit Rana and Washington Sundar, a captain is "only as good as how your bowlers or your batters perform", Gambhir said, and with that attack Iyer had done "a phenomenal job". It is a fair verdict, and it also tells you where the concern sits. An average of 211 conceded is the number that should follow this group around.

Abhishek got a different kind of attention. Gambhir said plainly that he has struggled against offspin, and that opponents keep studying him because of how he bats. Coaches often hide that sort of thing. Saying it out loud, a few days after a 38-ball 113, is a reasonable way to remind a batter that the hundred did not solve it.

Here is the part that should worry India more than any line from Hamilton. The coach who says he has already felt drained has seven more internationals in the next four weeks, across two formats, with four days between the last ODI and the first Test.

Before the fifth T20I he told broadcasters there are "no dead rubbers" in his ideology. India then lost that game by seven wickets. In the same interview he said his job is to "take the right decisions, not the popular decisions". The ODI series starts on Wednesday, and he will get plenty more chances to prove both.

He can take the bullet. Nobody in Hamilton doubted that. The honest news on Sunday was that he told us it hurts.