Former India head coach Sandeep Patil has defended current coach Gautam Gambhir ahead of the two-match Test series against Sri Lanka. Gambhir recently faced criticism after India suffered losses on the UK tour.

India was stunned 0-2 by Ireland and then suffered a 0-4 T20I series loss against England. The visitors suffered a 1-2 ODI series loss against England.

Furthermore, India’s Test record under Gambhir hasn’t been promising and the team has suffered home series losses against New Zealand and South Africa. However, Patil said it is not right to pick on one guy for the team’s collective failure.

Sandeep Patil said on TOI, “The Sri Lanka tour is crucial for everyone; why only Gambhir? If Gambhir has failed to perform, so have the players. It is not right to pick on one guy. We were not able to play spinners and lost the home series against New Zealand because they came prepared. They practised on turning wickets. Whereas our team was practising at the CoE on good tracks.”

On the other hand, former Indian opener Lalchand Rajput also defended Gautam Gambhir after critics have questioned team’s performance. Rajput said the team can not be winning all the time.

“I still feel that as a coach, there will be ups and downs. You can’t be winning all the time. The Indian team is going through a rebuilding process. And when the team is going through it, you have to give more time to the players and the coach. Greats like Rohit and Kohli have quit two formats, while India have a new T20 captain in Shreyas Iyer and have tried several new players in the T20 series in England,” said Rajput (via the aforementioned source).

India will play the first Test match against Sri Lanka from August 15 at Galle.