Cricket
‘If Gautam Gambhir was still at Lucknow…’: Noted ex-cricketers go gaga over GG as KKR mentor caps off dream IPL return
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Having led Kolkata Knight Riders to two Indian Premier League titles (2012, 2014) as captain, Gautam Gambhir’s return to KKR has proved to be a huge success. The India legend returned to Kolkata as mentor for IPL 2024, and it saw them clinch their third title.
On Sunday, KKR beat SRH by eight wickets, in what turned out to be a one-sided final. The result was a perfect reflection of Gambhir’s impact in the squad, which has also seen Sunil Narine move to top of the order.
Reacting to Gambhir’s mentorship, former SRH head coach Tom Moody said on ESPNcricinfo, “His ability to just get the ship in the right direction. He is very clear in what he believes the dressing room needed to go, the personnel that needed to be in that playing XI and the likes of Narine being back to top of the order again. If Gambhir was still at Lucknow this year, there was no way that Narine would have opened the batting this year.”
“A lot of things have just worked perfectly for KKR this year, in a positive way. I think Gambhir should be given a huge amount of credit for his impact as a leader. He has created stability and clarity that is the most important thing. When you see a long season in the IPL and if you have a number of different opinions and you have a loss here and there. Suddenly it becomes confusion and you have all moving pieces. You saw that with KKR in previous years, where they chopped and changed their top order, they didn’t really know what their best combination was. Gambhir is being very clear in the dressing, he wants the team to go and he speaks like that as well,” he further added.
Meanwhile, Gambhir’s former teammate Robin Uthappa also was left spellbound. Speaking on JioCinema, he said, “We have spoken about this quite a few times. One of the things that he does as a leader is defining roles. He creates a sense and a feeling of security within the group. He defines the roles very clearly to each player. Everyone feels included, you create a support staff that takes care of everybody. Honestly there is no rocket science to this and a lot of successful teams have done this. We have seen Mumbai Indians do this, CSK do this and KKR, when they do this right, it actually works for them. In the years, Gauti wasn’t with the squad, that went amiss a little bit but the minute he has come back, he has come back to the tried and tested formula that worked for him as a leader and a captain of this team.”
“Now he is doing it as a mentor and you can see the fruits of all that work that he is put in,” he added.
Chasing 114, KKR raced to 114/2 in 10.3 overs, courtesy of an unbeaten knock of 52* runs off 26 balls by Venkatesh Iyer. Initially, a sensational bowling display saw KKR bowl out SRH for 113 in 18.3 overs. Andre Russell returned with figures of 3/19 for KKR. Meanwhile, Mitchell Starc and Harshit Rana registered 2/14 and 2/24 respectively.
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