Gambhir hails India's ruthlessness in T20Is despite little preparation time in NZ

India head coach Gautam Gambhir praised his players' ruthlessness after completing a five-match T20I series in New Zealand, where they had precious little time to prepare but still won 3-2.

Shreyas Iyer and his men arrived in the country with just 24 hours to prepare for the first T20I in Christchurch, but won three games on the trot. Many of the squad were playing in New Zealand for the first time, and had to keep in mind the unconventional shape of the grounds and extraneous factors like the wind.

"I think," Gambhir said at the post-match press conference in Hamilton, where New Zealand beat India in the fifth T20I, "These boys, apart from winning, I think how they've handled the conditions and how ruthless they were in the first three games, especially when you're chasing 220 [226, in the first T20I]. We were down and out, three young boys got us across the line [in the second T20I].

"And then chasing 199 in what [less than] 14 overs and winning the first game after one practice session - that is what is called ruthlessness. We wanted to win the next two [matches] as well, but sometimes things don't go in your favour as well. So I feel the biggest achievement is how they were able to handle pressure, how they were able to handle conditions, and more importantly, how ruthless they were in the first three games.

"If we hadn't won this series, no one would have talked about one practice session. Then everyone would have said, 'oh, how poor is this Indian team that everything has gone wrong after the World Cup'. That's the reality. It's no secret that in India, people see only results, nothing else. My job is to prepare the players to the best of their ability and impart knowledge, because I have played in these conditions before in New Zealand.

"So it was important for me to share all that information, and try and keep them in a good space, and try and make sure that they are absolutely aggressive. That is the kind of cricket we have played in the last two, [to] two-and-a-half years - high risk, high reward. We will lose matches - sometimes we will lose one-sided games - and that will happen in future too. But our ideology, our philosophy won't change."

Shreyas now has three bilateral T20I series wins as captain after starting his tenure with two series losses. Apart from that, India under Iyer also beat Japan in a one-off T20I and won the gold medal at the Asian Games. Gambhir praised Iyer's influence on the team, and explained why their performance initially went down before going up.

"Look, obviously, when he took over, he took over a very, very successful T20 team," Gambhir said. "The team that had won a World Cup, and, more importantly, that hadn't lost a series in two years. I don't think so any other team across the globe had done that - that they've not lost a single series for two years and gone on to win the World Cup.

"Obviously, we had challenging oppositions as well. After the World Cup, we went to England, and more importantly, we had given a lot of new guys opportunities as well. We did lack a lot of experience, especially when you go to places like England and New Zealand. But this is a great opportunity as well. If you start thinking of building for the next world cup, you've got to give young players the opportunity, and try and develop them being on the road as well.

"Yes, Abhishek has struggled against offspin. The more he gets better at it, overall he will become a better player... We were just chatting about that. In the first match too, he got a little tied up against the offspinner. So, be it offspin or when the left-arm spinner was trying to cramp him... it was just a very tactical and technical stuff we spoke about"

Gautam Gambhir on Abhishek Sharma's problems against offspin

"Because if you see the amount of experience we had during the World Cup and after that the kind of experience we had in the bowling line-up, it is always challenging [for the opposition]. So I thought Shreyas has done a fabulous job with so much of inexperience in the bowling line-up because as a captain you're only as good as how your bowlers or your batters perform. So especially with an inexperienced attack, he's done a phenomenal job."

Gambhir has been trying to help Abhishek Sharma adapt his game now that the world is aware that the ball turning away from him is giving him problems.

"Yes, Abhishek has struggled against offspin. The more he gets better at it, overall he will become a better player," Gambhir said. "And you have to improve yourself because the opposition keeps studying you. The kind of batting you do, the kind of scores you put up, the speed at which you bat. So, if you improve your game against different bowlers, you will get one step ahead of the opposition.

"We were just chatting about that. In the first match too, he got a little tied up against the offspinner. So, be it offspin or when the left-arm spinner was trying to cramp him... it was just a very tactical and technical stuff we spoke about."