Dubai: A key sub-plot of the ongoing 11th edition of IPL was: who would have the last laugh among Gautam Gambhir and Mahendra Singh Dhoni in their little personal battle for the tag of best skipper in the history of the league? The latter, who has staged a comeback at the helm of Chennai Super Kings after two years, may prevail with Gambhir stepping down from the captaincy of laggards Delhi Daredevils after they lost five of their first six matches in this year’s Twenty20 tournament.
- Gautam Gambhir | Former India opener
“I take full responsibility for where we are at the points table,” Gambhir told reporters in a hastily arranged press conference at the Feroz Shah Kotla in New Delhi on Wednesday.
“I felt this was the right time because we still have a chance. Absolutely my decision. No pressure from the franchise.
“Maybe I was too desperate to turn things around… I was sitting alone and thinking, I couldn’t handle the pressure… I was not good enough and that is all,” said the 36-year-old opener. Young Mumbai batsman Shreyas Iyer has been appointed the new captain — signalling a change of guard of the old order in the cold, corporate world of IPL.
It’s difficult to believe that Gambhir, who along with Dhoni are the only two captains in the league to have led their respective sides in over 100 matches, could not handle the ‘pressure’ of it all. It was much more on him in 2011 when the southpaw, then a key member of the national team, stepped into the shoes of the legendary Sourav Ganguly to take charge of a rudderless Kolkata Knight Riders — under the scrutiny of a demanding Eden Gardens crowd. The unceremonious exit of Ganguly, who according to his home crowd could do no wrong, meant an additional pressure to perform as the new captain-batsman but Gambhir managed to tide over the storm — and how.
The next seven years saw the intense character win over the crowd with two IPL crowns (2012 and 2014), two entries into the play-off stages with an outfit which believed in Gambhir’s ‘team first’ philosophy and not a major assembly of stars like a Mumbai Indians or Royal Challengers Bangalore. Gambhir’s record over this seven years between 2011 and 2017 tells its own story — the Knights had won 61 out of the 108 matches under his leadership with a winning percentage of 56.48 while he was also the highest scorer for his team during this phase.
According to unconfirmed media reports, Gambhir has also decided to forego his contracted salary of Rs2.8 crores for the season and told the team management that would play the rest of the season for free — an unprecedented gesture in the cash-rich league.
Ricky Ponting, the Daredevils coach, congratulated Gambhir for what the former Australian captain called a “tough decision”.
“I think Gautam deserves a lot of credit with the way he has handled this situation,” said Ponting.
“It’s really unheard of in Indian cricket for a senior player to put his hand up and say that I am not playing well enough and for the team’s sake I am going to stand down,” he added.
For someone who had been the linchpin of the Indian team in all formats once, ‘Gauti’ had also been in and out of the squad for at least last three to four years — with him playing his 58th and most recent Test for India in 2016 against England.
Is the stepback then, the first move, in the direction of finally calling it quits? “I don’t know, it’s too early for me to decide on that. Let me sit down and decide. I have to think where my game goes and I go as an individual,” he added.
— With inputs from agencies
