Ahmedabad, March 9 Gautam Gambhir consistently emphasizes this belief. In fact, he reiterates it whenever possible, to anyone who hasn't acknowledged it – individual milestones won't be celebrated during his tenure as head coach.
This principle was recently reiterated by him after India won their third T20 World Cup trophy, defeating New Zealand by 96 runs in the final with a near-perfect performance.
"I believe that milestones don't matter. Trophies are what matter. For too long in Indian cricket, we've focused on milestones. And I hope that will continue," Gambhir said forcefully.
The former BJP MP then urged the cricket media to celebrate "trophies" rather than "milestones."
"Stop celebrating milestones, celebrate trophies. That is important, because the main goal of a team sport is to win trophies, not just score individual runs. I've always believed this, and I will continue to believe it," he reiterated.
"...I'm fortunate that I and Surya are on the same page, especially on this," said Gambhir.
While no names were mentioned, it's clear who he was referring to.
In Indian cricket, it's known that Gambhir often felt that his game-changing innings of 97 in the 2011 World Cup final, or his 75 in the 2007 T20 World Cup summit clash, were not fully appreciated.
In both cases, Mahendra Singh Dhoni's match-winning six (2011) and his strategic decision to give Joginder Sharma the last over (2007) became part of Indian cricket's folklore.
Gambhir used Sanju Samson's innings in the "virtual quarter-final" against the West Indies, and his performances in the semi-final and final, as examples of how to play a team sport.
"You can see in the last three games, what Sanju did. 97 not out, 89, 88 (89). Imagine if we had been focusing on individual milestones, we might not have scored 250. So, I think this is also relevant to you," Gambhir said.
Social media criticism doesn't matter
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Many of Gambhir's philosophies are debatable, and there are inherent contradictions if you dig deeper, but there's no denying that in the last two years, he has been less appreciated for India's successes and has often faced criticism for their failures.
The social media wars between fan groups haven't helped his cause either. But he doesn't care about the opinions of those who are watching from the sidelines.
"First of all, my accountability is not towards social media. My accountability is mainly towards those 30 people in the dressing room.
"...even if I win two ICC trophies as a coach, it doesn't matter because, in the future, those 30 people are the most important to me in my coaching tenure," he emphasized.
Teams built on "trust" not "hope"
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Those who haven't tracked Gambhir's journey during his formative years as a cricketer wouldn't know that he was deeply impacted by the vagaries of team selection right from the time he played for Delhi.
Intensity became a defining characteristic of his personality, and the image of "Smiling Gambhir" became rarer than a Vincent Van Gogh oil painting.
Once he became the coach, he knew that he had to make players believe that they wouldn't be treated unfairly.
So he backed Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, and Ishan Kishan, who were facing their own challenges. Ultimately, all three repaid the faith in the best way possible.
"I think you pick a team based on trust and faith. You don't pick a team based on hope. So, when you pick someone based on trust and faith, you don't lose that trust and faith after four or five games. It's simple," he said.
"The trust and faith that all of us had in the squad, that we had in the dressing room, regardless of whether we would have won this tournament... That trust and faith would have remained the same.
"So for me, that's something very important. And that will never go away, the trust and faith."
