“He clearly has talent”: Iceland Cricket trolls Gautam Gambhir  

The comments come in the wake of India’s 2-0 humbling in the T20 series v Ireland 

There is losing a series, and then there is losing it in a way that hands the internet’s favourite cricket trolls a free hit. India managed both this week.  

A 2-0 T20I defeat to Ireland, completed in Belfast on Sunday, ended a 16-series unbeaten run stretching back nearly three years, and within hours Iceland Cricket, social media’s reigning purveyor of deadpan cruelty, had turned its sights on head coach Gautam Gambhir. 

The Icelandic federation’s account, with a track record of mocking far bigger sides than its own, posted that it had no plans to add Gambhir to its coaching staff, before adding, with practised insincerity, that he clearly possessed talent: taking a roster as strong as India’s to Ireland and engineering that result required what it called “truly remarkable gifts”. The post spread quickly, racking up shares well beyond cricket’s usual social circles, helped along by the sheer unlikelihood of the result it was mocking. 

David downs Goliath 

The numbers explain the shock. India had won 16 consecutive bilateral T20I series under Gambhir since 2024, including clean sweeps of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, series wins in South Africa and Australia, and home victories over England and New Zealand. Ireland had never beaten India in eight previous meetings.  

This time, with World Cup winners Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan all in the side, Ireland won the first match by 34 runs and followed it up to seal a historic series sweep, India’s first bilateral T20I series loss in years. 

Iceland Cricket’s jab was not the only voice of dissent. Former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar questioned the team management’s calls throughout the tour, in particular the decision to keep teenage sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi out of both matches despite mounting calls for his debut. Manjrekar described the call as not a good cricketing decision, and the omission became a talking point of its own as India’s batting struggled across both games. 

On social media, the reaction followed a familiar arc: disbelief, memes, and a fair amount of pointed commentary on team selection and Shreyas Iyer’s opening assignment as full-time T20I captain, a tenure that now begins with a series defeat rather than the statement start many had expected. Indian cricket’s commentariat was, predictably, split between those treating it as a blip against a determined Irish side and those reading deeper selection and tactical concerns into it. 

For Iceland Cricket, this is simply business as usual. The account has built a global following by training its wit on cricket’s giants whenever they slip, and Gambhir now joins a list of high-profile figures to have felt its sting. Whether India’s coach finds it funny is, naturally, a separate question entirely.