AB de Villiers opined that India's head coach Gautam Gambhir will have to take accountability for the back-to-back T20 series defeats against Ireland and England and lead the team back to success in the shortest format.

The former South African captain said that the 0-2 defeat against Ireland and the 0-4 defeat to England would serve as a wake-up call for the three-time T20 World Cup champions. He urged Gambhir to bring the players "down to earth" again, after they had gotten accustomed to scoring a truckload of runs in the IPL. De Villiers added that the Indian batters will have to bat according to situations at the international level instead of playing only aggressive cricket like they do in the cash-rich league.

"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 stated, speaking 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.

The likes of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Abhishek Sharma, and Sanju Samson, who were scoring runs for fun in the IPL, had dismal outings with the bat against England.

While de Villiers said that it was tough to watch India lose four games against England in the five-match series, the cricketer-turned-expert added that he wasn't surprised because there was a lot of inexperience in the Shreyas Iyer-led side. De Villiers mentioned that leadership is going to play a key role going forward for India in the shortest format.

"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.