Gambhir refuses to blame fatigue for India's Caribbean defeats

Out-of-favour opener Gautam Gambhir does not believe that fatigue, due to excessive cricket, was the reason behind India's back-to-back defeats in the ongoing Tri series in the West Indies.

"Not at all...if you talk about fatigue, then it should not only affect the Indian team but also the other teams. They should also be affected by it. Sri Lanka is playing the same amount of cricket as India. If other team has played well, we must acknowledge it. There efforts should be recognised," said Gambhir.

India's tri-series campaign was thrown into disarray after a crushing 161-run defeat against Sri Lanka in Kingston on Tuesday. The Indians first allowed Sri Lanka to post a mammoth 348 for one and then were shot out for 187 in 44.5 overs, to suffer their second successive defeat.

The Indians had barely a few days to celebrate their Champions Trophy win in England before boarding the flight to the Caribbeans.

However, Gambhir warned against reading too much into the losses.

"It happens in every sport, there are bad and good phases and these things happen. It is part and parcel of cricket," said Gambhir on Wednesday.

Gambhir, whose form has been patchy of late, is presently out of the Indian team after he was ignored for the Champions Trophy. The good showing of the opening duo of Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma in the Champions Trophy has made it difficult for him to return to the Indian team.

Gambhir had hired the services of WV Raman, the former India opening batsman, as a personal consultant for a week to fine-tune his batting skills in his bid to make a comeback.

"A cricketer always works on his game whenever he gets the time and I was also doing the same thing. It's not like I was working on my batting technique," he said.

Gambhir also welcomed BCCI's Tour Programme and Fixtures Committee's decision to revamp the Ranji Trophy format.

The 2013-14 season Ranji Trophy matches will be played only during weekends while the gap between the fixtures will be four days after the third game and every team will play four 'home' and four 'away' games in the Ranji league phase.

"It's a good concept and the BCCI has done a right thing. It would be good to have four days gap and matches taking place on weekends. I support the steps taken by the BCCI," he said.

Talking about injuries to cricketers, Gambhir said, "Injuries can happen anytime and it is not necessary that it happens only because of excessive cricket being played these days," he said.