VVS Laxman has denied that he is replacing Gautam Gambhir as India’s head coach. Speaking during the Zimbabwe T20I tour in Harare, Laxman addressed the replacement speculation directly, making it clear that Gambhir and the senior coaching staff are simply on a scheduled break.
“I’m not replacing anyone. Coach Gambhir & the senior team staff are on their only break before the Sri Lanka Tests.”
VVS Laxman, BCCI video during Zimbabwe tour, July 2026
🔴 I’M NOT REPLACING GAUTAM GAMBHIR – VVS LAXMAN🤯
🎙️: I’m not replacing anyone. Coach Gambhir & the senior team staff are on their only break before the Sri Lanka Tests.
– I’ve handled this CoE role for the last four years, and it’s always rewarding to work with India’s senior… pic.twitter.com/UFjshkhppr
— Sam (@cricsam02) July 27, 2026
Laxman also referenced his four-year tenure as head of the BCCI Centre of Excellence and described working with India’s senior team as always rewarding. The statement came after India had already sealed the T20I series against Zimbabwe with a game to spare, giving Laxman the space to address the coaching narrative away from match pressure.
The denial was necessary because this is not the first time Laxman’s name has been linked with Gambhir’s job. In December 2025, after India were whitewashed 0-2 at home by South Africa, reports surfaced that the BCCI had informally sounded out Laxman about taking over as Test coach. BCCI Secretary Devajit Saikia publicly shut those reports down, calling them “factually incorrect and baseless” in an interview with ANI.
The speculation resurfaced in July 2026 during India’s tour of England. A verified X account, @Teamindiacrick, posted that Laxman was likely to take over the red-ball coaching role. That post gained over 375,000 views and more than 570 reposts. Meanwhile, Gambhir’s bilateral record continued to draw scrutiny. Under his coaching, India have won approximately 7 Tests against 10 losses and 2 draws. Home whitewashes against New Zealand (0-3) and South Africa (0-2), a 1-3 loss in Australia, and a T20I series defeat to both Ireland and England have kept the pressure constant, even as Gambhir’s coaching tenure delivered the 2025 Champions Trophy and the 2026 T20 World Cup.
The scheduling reason for Laxman’s presence in Zimbabwe was straightforward. India’s ODI series against England concluded at Lord’s on July 19. The first T20I in Harare started on July 23, just four days later. Gambhir stayed with the senior squad in England and was then given a break before India’s Test series in Sri Lanka, which begins on August 15. Laxman stepped in with a coaching unit from the Centre of Excellence: Sunil Joshi as bowling coach and Hrishikesh Kanitkar as batting coach. This was the same support staff that worked with India A in the recent Tri-series in Sri Lanka.
What Laxman’s CoE Role Actually Means for Indian Cricket
Laxman has held the CoE head role since December 2021. In that time, he has coached India’s senior team on multiple interim assignments. He guided India to a 2-0 T20I series win in Ireland in 2022, a 3-0 ODI sweep in Zimbabwe the same year, and the historic gold medal at the 2023 Asian Games. In 2024, he took a young squad led by Shubman Gill to Zimbabwe and won the T20I series 4-1. In this latest assignment, Laxman led India to a 3-0 sweep in Harare, with Vaibhav Sooryavanshi scoring 151 runs across three matches to earn Player of the Series. His overall T20I coaching record before this series stood at approximately 6 wins from 8 matches, a 75 per cent win rate. Laxman has never lost a bilateral series as India’s interim coach.
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The CoE head is not a backup coach waiting for his turn. Laxman tracks every player from U-19 through India A to the senior squad. A head coach meets a player when they arrive. Laxman meets them years before that. The CoE role gives him influence over Indian cricket’s future that a head coach’s contract simply cannot match.
Gambhir himself acknowledged this publicly after India won the 2026 T20 World Cup in March.
“I would dedicate this trophy to Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman. To Rahul bhai for putting Indian team in a place and Laxman for creating pipeline at CoE.”
Gautam Gambhir, post-match press conference, T20 World Cup 2026 final, March 2026
Gambhir went further in the same press conference, describing Laxman’s contribution as something that happens behind the scenes but shapes everything visible on the field. He called the Centre of Excellence “the pipeline for Indian cricket.” That phrase is significant. It means the head coach receives players that Laxman has already shaped. The two roles are not in competition. They are sequential. Laxman builds them, Gambhir deploys them.
This is also why the replacement narrative misreads the situation. Every time Laxman steps in and wins, the assumption is that he should want the bigger job. But the bigger job, by design, does not offer what his current role does. A head coach is judged series by series, lives under media scrutiny after every loss, and operates within a contract window. The CoE head operates across years, across formats, across generations of players. Laxman has said no to the full-time role at least twice, once before Dravid was appointed in 2021, and once before Gambhir was appointed in 2024. Both times, he chose to stay where he was.
India’s next assignment under Gambhir is a two-match Test series in Sri Lanka starting August 15. Under Laxman, the CoE pipeline will continue feeding players into that squad. Laxman is also expected to coach India at the 2026 Asian Games in Japan in September, where the cricket event overlaps with India’s home ODI series against West Indies. The split coaching arrangement is not a sign of crisis. It is how Indian cricket now manages a calendar that no single coaching unit can cover alone.
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