The after-shock of India’s Border Gavaskar Trophy loss against Australia was felt on Wednesday as sources claimed that the Rohit Sharma-led team’s assistant coach Abhishek Nayar has been sacked despite being only eight months into his tenure with the national side. Also, trainer Soham Desai and fielding coach T Dilip would not continue in their respective roles. While most reports claimed that Nayar was being removed after India’s poor show on the Tour of Australia, news agency PTI came up with an interesting detail.
A report by PTI claimed that Nayar’s removal was on the cards after Sitanshu Kotak was added to the Indian team’s support staff as an additional batting coach.
“…just after the tour of Australia, there was a review meeting conducted by the BCCI. The top officials of the board, including secretary Devajit Saikia and vice-president Rajeev Shukla, were present along with important members associated with the Indian team, and the national selectors,” a BCCI source was quoted as saying by the news agency.
“On the sidelines of the meeting, a powerful member of the support staff expressed his apprehensions about Nayar’s presence and said how him being in the dressing room is proving to be counter-productive.
“While the BCCI didn’t act immediately but they brought in Kotak, the former Saurashtra run-accumulator. It was a way of side-lining Nayar during the Champions Trophy,” the source added.
It is understood that Nayar was not the first-choice assistant for head coach Gautam Gambhir when the appointments were finalised.
He was appointed to act as a bridge between Gambhir and skipper Rohit Sharma, with whom he has shared a close friendship owing to their time together as Mumbai teammates.
Nayar and Dilip have been the Indian skipper’s “most trusted lieutenants” and it is not known whether Rohit was kept in the loop by the BCCI mandarins about these decisions.
According to a source from the BCCI, as quoted by news agency ANI, Abhishek Nayar and another assistant coach, Ryan ten Doeschate, were under scrutiny earlier at the start of 2025, as the BCCI wasn’t happy with the apparent ‘Kolkata Knight Riders touch’ in team management.
Former Indian all-rounder Abhishek Nayar and former Netherlands cricketer Ryan Ten Doeschate joined Team India’s support staff as assistant coaches during the white-ball tour of Sri Lanka eight months back. Nayar and Doeschate were also the assistant coaches at KKR and worked with Gambhir.
Under Gambhir’s mentorship, the Kolkata-based franchise won the 2024 edition of the Indian Premier League after beating Sunrisers Hyderabad by eight wickets in the final.
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