New Delhi: India Head Coach Gautam Gambhir Strongly denied the accusation that India’s pitches were “tailor-made” to favor the home team, saying the team was too strong to even consider such a strategy.After India’s successful campaign at the 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, Gambhir said criticism of pitch conditions often only creates controversy and attracts attention.Push boundaries with our YouTube channel. Subscribe now!“I don’t agree with that. Why would you customize something? Honestly, India is a very good team and would not even consider such a thing,” Gambhir said in an interview to ANI.He pointed out that India’s ability to achieve high scores was not limited to domestic conditions and highlighted similar high-scoring performances in countries such as Australia and South Africa.
“In the T20 format, whether in Australia or South Africa, we have given 200 runs. If we had run 200 overs in India, the wickets would have been customized. So I think some people want to create controversy. Statements against views and TRPs should not be accepted,” he said.The former opener also stressed that pitch preparations during the global tournament are overseen by the International Cricket Council and not the Board of Control for Cricket in India.Also read: India team report card: A happy ending to a less-than-perfect T20 World Cup journey“Because sometimes it’s also important to give a lot of credit to the players. It’s not like we scored such big scores only in Indian conditions. In the ICC tournament, they controlled the wickets. This is not BCCI Control them,” Gambhir said.Citing the example of Colombo’s group stage match against Pakistan, Gambhir noted that India scored huge goals at the turn while other teams struggled to score competitive points.“We even played a match against Pakistan in Colombo where we scored around 180 and other teams scored 140. We beat Pakistan by a huge margin and no one questioned the pitch there,” he said.Gambhir added that modern T20 cricket naturally produces high scores as the format heavily favors the batsmen.“No one wants to come and watch a 120-over T20 match. Everyone wants to watch a high-scoring game. It’s a worldwide phenomenon – it’s the same in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and England,” he explained.
