India lack ability to handle pressure in crucial games, says Gautam Gambhir

Former Indian batsman Gautam Gambhir opined that the current Indian team did not have the ability to handle pressure when it came to crucial knockout games. Gautam Gambhir also said that doing well only in group stages and not performing well in the knockout games do not make a team world champions.

"What sets you apart from being a good player to being a very very good player in a team squad is what you do in those crucial games. I think probably we have not been able to handle the pressure, probably other teams have been able to handle the pressure that way," Gambhir said on 'Cricket Connected'.

India will have to prove they are world champions: Gautam Gambhir

India have won two 50-over World Cups in 1983 and in 2011 but have failed to make it past the semifinal stages in the last two editions. Gautam Gambhir himself played crucial innings in the final of the 2007 T20 World Cup and the 2011 World Cup.

He believes that although India had all the potential in the world to win ICC tournaments, they still lacked the mental toughness to deliver performances in crunch situations in order to be crowned world champions.

"We can keep talking that we've got everything, we have the ability to be the world champions, but till the time you don't go on the cricket field and prove that, you will never be called the world champions. It's just your ability in those crunch situations. In bilaterals and league stages you have got probably a chance to make the mistake, come to knockout stages, you don't have a chance to do that, you make a mistake and you're going back home. That's where belief comes into play and that's what India lacks in all those crucial games," Gambhir stated.

Edited by S Chowdhury