India’s newly appointed head coach Gautam Gambhir served his first day at the office as India began their preparations in Pallekelle for the T20I series against Sri Lanka starting this Saturday (27th July). BCCI through its Twitter handle shared exclusive footages from India’s first training session.

Gambhir as he mentioned in the pre-departure press conference, is taking over a very successful Indian side. India has arguably been the most dominant side in the last 12 months across formats. Except for winning the T20 World Cup, India has finished second at the ICC events of the other two formats.

Speaking to reporters for the first time in his new role, Gambhir touched on the way he wants to work with India’s players and what they can expect from him. “It is very simple,” he said on Monday in Mumbai. “It is important to give players freedom – that’s what I believe in – and not have a relationship of a head coach and a player.

“The best relationship is one built on trust. The most important thing is they’ll always have my backing. I don’t complicate too many things. I am taking over a very, very successful team – India are T20 world champions, have been runners-up in the World Test Championship and the 50-overs World Cup.”

A full-strength Indian T20I side will be on display for the first time since they became the World Champions in Barbados last month. However, things will be different this time around as India will go in with their young guns and also a new skipper in the form of Surya Kumar Yadav.

Post the retirement of India’s big guns from the shortest format, this series would be a wonderful platform for a young Indian side to showcase their skills and also start preparing for a bigger picture – the T20 World Cup 2026 at home. Surya has previously led India in T20s in South Africa and he would now want to prove his merit and secure his position as India’s full-time T20I captain.

On the other hand, the ODI series will see the return of big names such as Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Kl Rahul, and others. Shubhman Gill has been promoted as the vice-captain, which is one of the significant development in the context of India’s ODI future. What makes the context of the ODIs much bigger is the upcoming Champions trophy that is scheduled in less than 5 months from now.

India is scheduled to play a 3-match T20I series, which will be followed by 3 ODIs. All the T20 games will take place in Pallekelle, while the ODIs will be hosted in Colombo.

India’s T20I squad: Suryakumar Yadav (c), Ꮪhubman Gill (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rinku Singh, Riyan Parag, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sanju Samson (WK), Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Khaleel Ahmed, Mohammed Siraj.

India’s ODI squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill (vc), Virat Kohli, KL Rahul (WK), Rishabh Pant (wk), Shreyas Iyer, Shivam Dube, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohd. Siraj, Washington Sundar, Arshdeep Singh, Riyan Parag, Axar Patel, Khaleel Ahmed, Harshit Rana.