India were dealt crushing series defeats in the recently concluded T20I assignments against Ireland and England, with the defending champions struggling to match the intensity shown by the opposition and being handed a wake-up call. Across both series, India were clean swept, going down 2-0 to Ireland and 4-0 to England. Amid India's sudden downfall, former South Africa cricketer AB de Villiers advised Indian head coach Gautam Gambhir to bring the players down early after scoring lots of runs in the IPL.

"Lots to worry about. Lots of eyes and fingers will be pointed at Gautam Gambhir. He needs to take leadership and ownership of how this team will move forward. He's got all the credentials to do so. Maybe this was not a bad thing to get a bit of a wake-up call. Bring those players who have scored so many runs in the IPL a little bit down to earth again," de Villiers said on his YouTube channel.

"Let them understand that this is international cricket; there's no more weakness. In the IPL, there are always one or two bowlers you think you can score against. (In international cricket, there's nowhere to hide, so you need to have more than one or two gears. You can't always bat in the fifth gear," he further said.

Experienced players like Sanju Samson and Tilak Varma recorded diabolical outings despite performing brightly in the IPL. Even Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, who had taken the IPL 2026 by storm, could not replicate the same performance either against Ireland or England. 

"It was tough to watch India going down 4-0. I did not see that coming. But also not completely unexpected because of the lack of experience, and that is the word that comes to mind. The leadership becomes all the more important. I know there are a lot of fingers pointed at Gautam Gambhir. It is not only him. He plays a huge role. But you will have to be patient with the makeup of that team," de Villiers further said.