Sunil Gavaskar looks at how players have grown under Gautam Gambhir, Ashish Nehra, and Chandrakant Pandit for the IPL in 2023.

IPL 2023 has given rise to a lot of future stars who could play for the national team in the years to come. Rinku Singh and Suyash Sharma became new stars for the Kolkata Knight Riders under the watchful eye of Chandrakant Pandit. At the same time, Gautam Gambhir really helped Krunal Pandya grow as a leader and trained players like Naveen-ul-Haq and Ayush Badoni, among many others.

Ashish Nehra has also been great for Gujarat Titans, which has really impressed Sunil Gavaskar, who used to play for India. Gavaskar, when talking about how important it is to have an Indian coach, said that it’s easier for Indian players to talk to their teachers if they are Indian, since they speak the same language, unlike when the coaches are from another country and don’t speak the same language. Gavaskar did say, though, that there are a few cases.

“Look at how far Rinku Singh has come under Chandu Pandit, how Venkatesh Iyer and Varun Chakravarthy have come back to form, and how Nitish Rana has grown as a leader. Ravi Bishnoi, Ayush Badoni, and Naveen-Ul-Haq are all getting better under the direction of Gautam Gambhir. Ashish Nehra and Hardik Pandya always find a new player of the match.

That’s because it’s easy for the Indian players on these teams to talk to each other and get in touch with each other. There will always be an overseas champion who is good with young players and can help train and teach them. “These are unusual cases, not the norm,” Gavaskar wrote in his Sportstar column.

Notably, Ashish Nehra led Gujarat Titans to the IPL title in 2022, and Gambhir has led LSG to the playoffs in both of their seasons. Chandrakant Pandit, on the other hand, turned Rinku Singh into a possible star and brought back Venkatesh Iyer, whose career had been in bad shape for almost a year. On the other hand, SRH, DC, and PBKS haven’t really benefited from having foreign coaches like Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, and Trevor Bayliss this season.