Mark Butcher has praised India head coach Gautam Gambhir for building a T20 World Cup winning side without reliance on individual super stars for success.
Speaking on the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast following India's T20 World Cup victory, Butcher said others could learn from India's move away from relying on "individual super stars" for success. "There's quite a stark contrast there in the way that their neighbours from the north [west] in Pakistan are still stuck in the idea of personal milestones and individual super stars," said Butcher. "Gautam Gambhir, who's had his detractors over his time in charge has basically walked away from that mantra, and has built a team."
India won the T20 World Cup in 2024, following which Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja all announced their retirements from the format. Their victory in Ahmedabad over New Zealand in the 2026 final made them the first team to win successive men's T20 World Cups.
After India scored 255-5 batting first in the final, having put 253-7 past England in the semi-final three days before, complaints circled on social media over the batting-dominated nature of the contest. New Zealand were bowled out for 159 in 19 overs in the chase, giving India a 96-run victory.
"The point is that in order to win a game of T20 cricket, no matter who the star is, whether it's a bowling team who are brilliant defensively or a bowling team that knocks a team over for 120 and then you chase them down in 10 overs, it's the whole that gets you the result," said Butcher. "Look at India's win over England in the semi-final, there were lots of complaints that there was nothing in it for the bowlers. Bowlers won that game – [Jasprit] Bumrah won that game for India. His two overs in the final five... those two overs stopped England in their tracks and stopped England from pulling off the most extraordinary run chase you'll have seen in a semi-final.
"Therefore the numbers stack up too: 'batsmen, big runs, player of the match award or whatever' is the headline, but if you're able to look beyond that, it's the bowlers in a game where runs were flowing like wine, who won the match for India in the end. That's why I hold no truck with the idea that bowlers are not important in T20 cricket, they absolutely are, as they are in every format of the game."
Butcher: ‘Astonishing’ Bumrah is an outlier in world cricket, and maybe he will be forever
Jasprit Bumrah was awarded the Player of the Match award in the final, having taken figures of 4-15 in the chase. He finished the tournament as joint-leading wicket-taker alongside teammate Varun Chakravarthy, and out on his own among pace bowlers.
"He's an astonishing defensive bowler," said Butcher. "His numbers over the course of his T20I career, he goes at six and a half an over in this era – in the era where everyone's complaining that the batters are basically making the game a joke... The skill that he has to bowl the perfect yorker, to change his pace in a way that is so well disguised and so brilliantly executed in terms of the perfect length, the perfect line and whatever else, when the pressure is highest and people are coming at him, or coming at the bowling to go big, is quite remarkable."
"He's an absolutely outlier in world cricket at the moment, and maybe forever. People love doing the comparison thing of great bowlers from different eras but nearly all of those guys didn't have to contend with scoring rates as they are meant to be in T20 cricket, and therefore it's impossible to say whether or not they would have been or could have been as good as he is. He is absolutely outstanding."
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