Former Indian pacer Zaheer Khan believes head coach Gautam Gambhir must accept the criticisms that come his way after the side's latest Test series defeat to South Africa. Team India went down in a 0-2 whitewash at home to the Proteas, extending their poor run in the red-ball format.Since Gambhir took over as head coach in the middle of last year, India have been largely disappointing in the long format. The side suffered a first home series defeat in over a decade to New Zealand at the end of last year.A 1-3 setback in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia followed before a young Indian side came away with an impressive 2-2 draw in England earlier this year. However, after a 2-0 clean sweep of the West Indies at home, India returned to their underwhelming ways in the recently concluded South African series.Talking about the pressure on Gambhir after a string of sub-par red-ball results, Zaheer said on Cricbuzz:"So the accountability and the appraisal is always going to be there. It goes hand in hand and the job demands you to be that way. The scrutiny with the game is always going to be there with your role. So you've got to be able to balance it. You've got to be thick skinned to be able to deal with all these criticisms."He added:"Emotions run high and you are expected to win every game. And you are expected to win because you've been doing that consistently. So you have the strength in your side to be able to achieve those kinds of milestones and to have those kinds of victories."Team India missed out on the World Test Championship (WTC) final this year after qualifying for the same in the first two editions in 2021 and 2023."Create pitches which are going to last five days" - Zaheer KhanZaheer Khan urged India to play on pitches tailored to last the full five days at home to overcome their recent batting frailties. The hosts crossed a team score of 200 only once in the four innings in the South African Tests."Playing at home, you have to score runs. If you are not able to right now do that consistently then create pitches which are going to last five days and go that way. Even if you don't get the results in a few games, that's fine. But some kind of simplified but clear thinking is required as far as the Test match format is concerned," said Zaheer (via the aforementioned source).The latest series loss leaves India struggling in fifth place in the 2025-27 WTC standings with a win percentage below 50.