India confirmed their place in the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup 2026 with a strong win over West Indies at the Eden Gardens on Sunday, March 1. The Suryakumar Yadav-led side chased down a big target with confidence. After the match, head coach Gautam Gambhir spoke about India’s batting style in the tournament.
In bilateral series before the World Cup, India played an ultra-aggressive brand of cricket. Many expected them to continue the same approach in the global event. However, in seven matches so far, India have crossed the 200-run mark only twice. This shows a slight change in strategy during the tournament.
Gautam Gambhir Highlights Pressure and Conditions
Gambhir said World Cups are very different from bilateral series.
“One thing is very clear that the bilateral are very different to World Cups. The pressure is different, the competition is different, obviously the stakes are much higher as well, bilaterals you got the time to make a comeback, but in World Cups you don’t have a time to make a comeback and more importantly – yes people can talk about it that they expect us to play the same brand of cricket what we played in the bilaterals as well. But you can imagine the pressure the boys go through, especially most of the games are must win games as well. And sometimes wickets can be tricky as well,” he was quoted as saying by NDTV.
He also spoke about the impact of dew.
“During the bilaterals as well – there were a lot of dew in the second innings as well, but we did not see a lot of dew during this World Cup campaign. So I felt that it was not only about the strike rate, it is about reading the game properly and obviously reading the situation as well. And that is something that is going to be important and the guys did that really well,” Gambhir said.
He added,
“Even today you saw they were chasing 195. We never felt that we were out of the game. Never ever did we felt in 20 overs that the chase was away from us. So the guys kept in control. Yes, there were times in bilateral where we could chase the target in 16, 17 overs, but this is World Cup. And the pressure is different, and the quality is different as well,” he concluded.
Sanju Samson starred with an unbeaten 97. India will now face England in the second semi-final at Wankhede Stadium on March 5.
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