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Former India international Gautam Gambhir has lambasted Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) skipper Virat Kohli after RCB were knocked out of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 by Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on Friday.
Gambhir, who has won two IPL titles as captain of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), lashed out at Kohli for not delivering despite being associated with RCB for 8 years.
The former opener gave an example of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) captain MS Dhoni and Mumbai Indians (MI) skipper Rohit Sharma, stating that both of them have been a long-standing captain for their respective teams because of their performance as a leader.
Gambhir asserted that MI management would have removed Rohit from captaincy had he not delivered in these so many years.
“Eight years is a long, long time. Look at what happened to R Ashwin. Two years of captaincy [for the Kings XI Punjab], he couldn’t deliver, and he was removed. We talk about MS Dhoni; we talk about Rohit Sharma, we talk about Virat Kohli…not at all,” said Gambhir as quoted by India Today.
“Dhoni has won three [IPL] titles, Rohit Sharma has won four titles, and that’s the reason they’ve captained for such a long time because they’ve delivered. I’m sure if Rohit Sharma hadn’t delivered for eight years, he would have been removed as well. There should not be different yardsticks for different people,” the southpaw added.
“RCB didn’t deserve to qualify for the playoffs”: Gambhir
When RCB qualified for the playoffs despite the loss against Delhi Capitals (DC) in the league stage, Kohli had said that his team deserved to be in the next phase because of the good cricket they had played
However, Gambhir decided to slam Kohli on that comment as he pointed out that RCB lost their last five games on the trot, and never deserved to qualify in the top 4. The 39-year-old stated that RCB were fortunate to win in the Super Over against MI as they didn’t have a good season at all.
“You can keep saying ‘we qualified for the playoffs and we deserved to qualify for the playoffs’, absolutely not. RCB actually never deserved to qualify for the playoffs. If you see the last four or five games, and even that one Super Over against Mumbai Indians, they were very fortunate that Navdeep Saini bowled that over brilliantly. Otherwise, they didn’t have a great season – from the batting point of view and the bowling,” Gambhir added further.
