Gautam Gambhir Emphasizes Virat-Rohit's Presence In India's White-Ball Setup While Praising Youngsters

At this moment, the Indian think tank is doing a tough balancing act of building the team around a new set of players without completely cutting ties with the old guard.

In that context, head coach Gautam Gambhir, who oversees this process, was a delighted man to see both the parties chipping in with handy contributions.

Giving heft to the senior side, Virat Kohli emerged player of the series in the ODIs against South Africa, scoring two hundreds and a fifty — a quick ride back to his incredible peaks of 2015 onwards.

Rohit Sharma helped himself to a couple of fifties to underline his fine touch.

Gambhir hoped the two stalwarts will continue to churn out such performances, which will keep the ODI outfit in good shape.

“Look, they’re quality players. I've said it many times as well that they're world-class players. They are quality players in this format and their experience is really important in the dressing room,” said Gambhir at the press meet after India beat SA by nine wickets to bag the one-day series 2-1.

“They're doing what they do. They've been doing it for such a long time for Indian cricket. Hopefully, they can continue doing the same, which is always going to be important come the white ball format and the 50-over format,” he added.

The rest given to seniors Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammad Siraj and the injury-enforced absence of Shubman Gill and Hardik Pandya gave India a chance to test the skillsets of some young tyros.

Gambhir was particularly delighted with the growth of Harshit Rana as a bowling all-rounder.

“That's one of the reasons why we are trying to probably develop someone like Harshit, who can actually bat at No. 8 and contribute with a bat.

“That's how we need to find the balance, because come South Africa in two years' time (2027 ODI WC), we would be needing three proper seamers as well. And if he can continue to develop as a bowling allrounder, it's going to give us a massive boost,” he said.

Similarly, Gambhir was also impressed by the outings of seamers Arshdeep Singh and Prasidh Krishna in the series.

“With Jaspreet Bumrah coming back and what we saw of Arshdeep, Prasidh and Harshit in this series was incredible because all these three guys do not have a lot of experience, especially in 50-over format. They've hardly played, what, less than 15 ODIs. But they've done a fabulous job,” he said.