Ravichandran Ashwin said on Tuesday that players like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma are not feeling secure under Gautam Gambhir, and contrasted it directly with how Rahul Dravid ran the India dressing room, citing three specific names and how Dravid backed each of them.
🚨 Ravichandran Ashwin – Difference between Dravid and Gambhir is even Virat and Rohit are not feeling secure🚨
Ravichandran Ashwin gave a very controversial statement that – Under the coaching of Gautam Gambhir players like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma are not feeling secure… pic.twitter.com/1u7xQ87eVT
— Achyut Mishra (@PulledFor_Six) July 21, 2026
The remarks were summarised by cricket analyst Achyut Mishra on his verified X account @PulledFor_Six at 9:12 AM on July 21. According to the summary, Ashwin said Dravid made sure every player had clarity about their place in the team. He backed Shubman Gill as opener through repeated failures, brought Kuldeep Yadav in as a frontline third spinner, and gave Shardul Thakur a sustained run at number 8. Under Gambhir, Ashwin reportedly said, two of India’s most senior ODI players no longer feel that clarity exists for them.
No official response from Gambhir or the BCCI has been made at time of publication.
“No one will be able to touch Virat or Rohit if they want to continue playing because both have incredible credentials. Rohit has more than 12,000 international runs, and both of them have consistently delivered for India. They are batters, and they have massive fan armies. People come to the stadiums to watch them. If you drop either of them, the noise will be deafening.”
Ravichandran Ashwin, Ash Ki Baat, July 20, 2026
Read that quote and then read what Achyut Mishra reported the next morning. Ashwin said in one breath that Kohli and Rohit are impossible to remove from this team. He said in the next that they are not feeling secure in it. An undroppable player who does not feel wanted is a specific and serious problem. It is not a contradiction. It is a precise description of what happens when selection decisions are made without clear accompanying communication.
This was not Ashwin’s first statement this week on this theme. On July 17, speaking on his Hindi YouTube show Ash Ki Baat, he questioned why management had allowed uncertainty over Rohit and Kohli’s 2027 World Cup futures to drag on without resolution, saying that players who did not feel wanted could not perform at their best. Two days later, on July 19, he publicly called out the decision to bench Kuldeep Yadav for the series-deciding third ODI at Lord’s, despite Kuldeep being in the squad and Arshdeep Singh taking the number-eight batting slot that day.
The only defense for not playing Kuldeep usually is that the batting finishes at number 7, wonder how it feels to have Arshdeep at number 8 today!
Adding Bumrah’s absence to that, one can only feel bad for Kuldeep.
Trust me, this can affect the rythm and confidence of a…
— Ashwin 🇮🇳 (@ashwinravi99) July 19, 2026
Ashwin posted that from his verified account on July 19. The India management has not publicly responded to the question he raised there either.
The Kuldeep point was not a general complaint about spin selection. Ashwin had already raised questions about Kuldeep’s place under Gambhir before this series began. It was the same argument he would state more explicitly two days later: a specialist is not being backed, and the cost of that falls not just on the player but on what the player can produce when eventually called upon.
The three Dravid-era examples in Ashwin’s reported remarks all follow the same logic. Gill at the top of the order was failing publicly and under significant pressure from fans and analysts. Dravid did not rotate him out. He let the innings accumulate until Gill found his footing as an international opener. Kuldeep was fighting for his place against the dominant preference for batting all-rounders. Dravid held that line and Kuldeep became one of India’s most effective white-ball weapons. Shardul at number 8 was a specific tactical call about what the lower order needed to contribute. Dravid made the decision and gave Shardul the consecutive games to grow into the role. Each of these was a selection call made against external pressure, then held without wavering.
The Coach Who Once Said Exactly This
What makes Ashwin’s critique especially pointed is that Gambhir himself articulated the same principle, at length, before he became India’s coach.
“I feel insecurity is the biggest reason for a player’s failure. It’s not about ability. If you don’t have the ability you won’t reach the first-class, IPL, or international level in the first place. So it is important to have a secure dressing room. A secure dressing room is a happy dressing room and it eventually becomes a winning dressing room.”
Gautam Gambhir, SK Match Ki Baat, May 2024
At his first press conference as India head coach on July 22, 2024, Gambhir added that international cricket can be insecure because only fifteen can be picked, and that it is the job of the support staff to keep players happy.
Gambhir did not arrive at this philosophy through theory. He lived it as a player. He admitted publicly that he felt insecure before the 2011 ODI World Cup because he had not played the previous series, another player had scored runs in his position, and debates were circulating about whether he would make the playing eleven. He said at the time that it should not happen to other players, and that giving them comfort was the responsibility of those running the team.
He is now the person running the team.
Insider Read:
The specific damage insecurity does inside a dressing room is not to technique. It is to decision-making.
A batter who knows he is playing the next match regardless walks out to 25 for 3 and plays the shot that wins the game. A batter whose place is under review walks out to the same score and plays the shot that looks defensible, even if it does not win the game. Those are two different shots. They look almost identical on television. The difference shows up in the match result.
The Kuldeep example cuts even deeper. A wrist spinner needs consecutive games to get his length right, his loop right, and his reading of pitch and conditions across overs. You cannot bench a specialist for three matches and expect him to walk in sharp in the fourth. Dravid held the line on Kuldeep not from sentiment but because he understood what specialist bowling rhythm actually requires, and what it costs a player when that rhythm is broken mid-series.
The deepest form of dressing room insecurity is not being dropped. It is not knowing whether you are about to be dropped. A player told clearly what the criteria are can organise his game around them. A player told “we back everyone” has no criteria at all. Dravid communicated the criteria. That is precisely what Ashwin is pointing to.
Ashwin is not making this observation from outside the experience. He retired midway through the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 series in Australia. He later said publicly that he had experienced what it felt like to be told the team wanted to move on from him, and that clear communication, however painful, was always better than prolonged uncertainty.
His observation about Kohli and Rohit is not theoretical. It is one man describing a pattern he lived through and now watches repeating.
Rohit himself was the person who brought Gambhir into the India setup. According to PTI, during IPL 2024 Rohit approached Gambhir at a training session and said: “Gauti bhai Indian team mein aa jaao.” Gambhir replied: “If you remain captain, I will definitely join.” The man whose confidence made Gambhir’s appointment possible is now the man whose future in the team is publicly debated without resolution, and whose sense of security inside that team, according to Ashwin, is not what it should be.
Gambhir has not made a public statement in response to Ashwin’s remarks.
Sources
- Ashwin demands clarity on Rohit and Kohli’s 2027 World Cup futures, IANS, July 17, 2026 Prokerala
- R Ashwin points to selection bias, explains why Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are impossible to drop, Times of India, July 20, 2026Â Yahoo Sports
Also Read
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- Packing His Bags’: Kaif and Ashwin Question Gambhir’s Kuldeep Yadav Call at Lord’s ODI
- Vikrant Gupta Calls Out India’s Dressing Room and Bowling Depth After England Series Loss
- Ashwin Says This Management Hasn’t Backed Kuldeep Enough: And Here’s Why It Matters
- Dinesh Karthik on Gambhir and Agarkar: Every Player Is Now Thinking One More Bad Game and I’m Out
- Ashwin: England Backed Buttler for 10 Months While India Played Musical Chairs
