Aggressive. Temperamental. Egotistical.
He has been labelled this and yet, most of what the world calls Gautam Gambhir, birthday boy today, has never mattered. It never will.
What has, and will, in fact, are results that he has brought to the game; some on the pitch and some off it.
Twenty years ago when he arrived onto the middle, Gautam Gambhir played under the captaincy of Rahul Dravid, the wall for team India and the coach under whose tutelage the team recently lifted the T20 World Cup in the Caribbean.
Two decades hence, Gautam Gambhir has taken over the role his former captain essayed as head coach of the Indian men’s cricket team. And the results are showing.
India recently smashed Bangladesh at in the T20 series. Every person whom Gambhir backed came to the party, most notably Suryakumar Yadav, the MI batsman who was appointed by Gambhir himself as the new coach of the T20I unit. Forget not, Sanju Samson, whose trailblazing three figure at a strike rate north of 230 score crippled Bangladesh and helped India whitewash a clueless looking neighbour.
But truth be told, to his critics, Gautam Gambhir remains a short fuse who’s often capable of turning into his own compatriots. They are quick to harp on that incident where most noticeably in the IPL several moons ago the Delhi born lad charged at equally upset looking Virat Kohli.
Then there’s the 2023 IPL saga, where Gambhir, as Lucknow SuperGiants’ guru, came hard against RCB’s Kohli concerning a dismissal.
But what his unsparing critics don’t understand is that Gambhir has been just as appreciative of the very men he’s been pitted against or has had some sort of verbal duels with. He’s hailed MS Dhoni’s contributions as an outstanding leader for the Indian cricket team while he has heaped praise on Kohli’s legendary batting.
That is when he was himself no mug with the bat.
Source– Twitter / X (Gautam Gambhir)
With 20 international centuries to his name, nearly 1,000 T20I runs at a time where the format hadn’t yet become a hotseller and over 9300 runs from Tests and One dayers, Gambhir solidified India’s top order, rescued a side that often struggled when Dravid and Sachin collapsed and played the aggressor with the team’s back often pushed to the wall.
There was a sense of elan but also purpose to the left hander’s batting.
In an age where outstanding cricketers were just as inclined at stylising their bat, AB de Villiers pulling off all sorts of pyrotechnics with the bat, Faf’s aggressive stance prompting countless camera shots and Gayle’s celebrations becoming a theatre on 22 yards, Gambhir was different.
There was a sense of poise and thinking to the quietly determined batsman.
Take his breathtakingly beautiful 97 in the 2011 World Cup final or that useful counterattacking knock in the 2007 T20 World Cup where he scored 50 off 33 deliveries versus the BlackCaps, in Gambhir India had a batsman who fought fire to fire and never gave up.
And yet, when the team needed him to do so, he fended off difficult periods and stuck to an end. During Australia’s 2008 tour to India, when the series reached the third Test at Delhi, one of the national capital’s most loved sons turned up with the bat big time. It was the era of Anil Kumble’s captaincy where the headliners of the Indian team still being the likes of God Tendulkar, Prince Ganguly and Wall Dravid.
And yet, it was Gambhir who led his team on way to a commanding team score of 613/7 decl.
Ponting threw everything at Gambhir, including Watson, Lee and Johnson. But Gautam Gambhir’s focus was unbent during his 206, a career best knock. For a span of 380 deliveries, which is way more than the number of deliveries allotted to a batting unit in a one-day inning, Gambhir remained at the crease.
He was fluent. He was focused.
He was relentless. And yet despite serving the county for well over a decade with absolute commitment and honesty, there’s always an unsatisfying feeling about the honest batter.
One tends to feel that Gambhir hasn’t quite gotten the due he was due.
Maybe that is still the case.
It could be that batters with more sizeable experience and swashbuckle, whether Sehwag and Yuvraj, one a triple centurion on two separate occasions and the other, the Prince of Punjab wielding the bat, got more limelight for possessing style.
Gambhir, effective and resilient (ODI strike rate of 85 and test strike rate of over 51) wasn’t perhaps painted with the same considerate brush perhaps because of a relatively higher degree of studiousness he epitomised.
Which leads us to question if we, whether as commentators on cricket, authors who weave stories or just impassioned fans possess the discerning eye to correctly label those who put everything on the line for team India’s glory?
Could it be that as part of a celeb-obsessed culture that cares less for plainness and loves the thing called sheen, we have grown narrower in our understanding of the depth possessed by some?
Gautam Gambhir’s understanding of his KKR outfit and the way he shapes the talent of his current Lucknow stable by making himself fully aware of his cricketers’ skill offers an insight into a mind that deeply cares for the game.
It tells us that for one to succeed, whether as coach or mentor, you need to build the culture of a big brother for your talents, by convincing them that they’re amid an environment of certainty, not one that’s quick to label one as a failure in the wake of a lack of success.
One would note, Gambhir it a touch too serious at times
But he’s the reminder that true passion for Cricket tends to make one so lost in its intricacies that the audiences feel that the sport is complex, lacks the element of fun and can often get serious.
But then it is his true passion to serve India which, at the end of the day, is taking the team places.
They even tanked Sri Lanka in what was to have been a closely contested series, which culminated in popular wins by margins as 43 runs and even 7 wickets.
That this series win came in Sri Lanka was further proof of the current coach’s underlying confidence in his eleven.
Having said that, Gambhir’s biggest challenge, if also opportunity, comes in finding the right balance between experience and exuberance. This is no child’s plan.