New Delhi: India coach Gautam Gambhir has spoken in favor of the new travel regulations introduced by the BCCI following last year in Australia and that seek to limit the appearances of the families of players during long international tours. According to the new regulations issued by the BCCI in January the families of the players are allowed to accompany them by a maximum of two weeks when their tour takes a minimum of 45 days and in case of shorter tours then the maximum stay within the family will be only seven days. Senior Indian batter Virat Kohli had opined in the past about the BCCIs travel restriction before the commencement of the IPL 2025 season and this was a candid response on the new guidelines. “It’s very difficult to explain to people how grounding it is to just come back to your family every time you have something which is intense which happens on the outside” Kohli said at the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) Innovation Lab Indian Sports Summit. “I don’t think people have an understanding of what value it brings to a large extent. And I feel quite disappointed about that because it’s like people who have no control over what’s going on are kind of brought into conversations and put out at the forefront that ‘oh maybe they need to be kept away’” Kohli said. “If you ask any player do you want your family to be around you all the time? You’ll be like yes. I don’t want to go to my room and just sit alone and sulk. I want to be able to be normal. And then you can really treat your game as something that is a responsibility. You finish that responsibility and you come back to life” Kohli added. Gambhirs blunt response Before the Lord Test of the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy against England Gautam Gambhir in an interview with Cheteshwar Pujara said that he supports the BCCI move to count the number of days families of players can be with them during tours abroad. “Families are important but you’ve got to understand one thing. You are here for a purpose. It’s not a holiday. You’re here for a huge purpose. You’ve got very few people in that dressing room or in this tour that gets this opportunity to make the country proud. So yes I’m not against not having families with us.” “It is important to have families but if your focus is towards making our country proud and you have a much bigger role than any other thing and you’re committed to that goal you’re committed to that cause I think everything else is fine. But for me I think that cause and that goal is more important than any other thing” said Gambhir. That’s a tough question. I still haven’t understood how do I switch off because I never switch off and sometimes it’s very funny and it’s very weird. Honestly when we won the last test match the moment we won the last test match the first thing that came in my mind was that what is going to be the combination for the next Test?” said Gambhir on being asked about how he unwinds between games. “And when I went back in my room I was thinking how does that work? We’ve just won a test match. The guys have worked hard to make a comeback after the first one I already started thinking about what’s going to be the combination how can we win the next one? but I still haven’t figured out honestly to switch off” said Gambhir.