Arun Jaitley Stadium finally has a stand named after Gautam Gambhir

Former Indian batsman Gautam Gambhir was finally honoured after the North Stand in the Arun Jaitley Stadium was renamed after him. The Delhi southpaw has contributed a lot to Indian cricket and also at the domestic level and he feels privileged to have received such a huge honour. But this honour was supposed to be received months ago, thus prompting Gambhir to question DDCA President Rajat Sharma for delaying the ceremony. 

Sharma had resigned earlier this month owing to the politics in Delhi cricket but the Apex Council kept a hold on his resignation and asked him to continue his tenure as a President.

"I think the president can answer this question better because earlier I was told that stand will be unveiled during the India versus Australia game (in March), then they said it will be the first game of the IPL. This was what was told to me in the last six to seven months," Gambhir told TOI.

Gambhir joins the likes of Virender Sehwag, Virat Kohli, Mohinder Amarnath, etc. to have received this honour. On this occasion he tried to point out important problems in Delhi cricket administration and one of the problems he had was with the senior selection panel of Delhi which comprised of Atul Wassan, Vineet Jain and Anil Bhardwaj. Gambhir believes that Jain should not have been made the selector as he never played for Delhi.

"One thing probably which is absolutely not acceptable is having a selector who has not played for Delhi. Delhi is like Mumbai and Karnataka, we are multiple time Ranji Trophy champions, so you don't expect to have a selector who has never played for Delhi. In fact, you have got a junior selector also who has never played for Delhi,” Gambhir said.

"I had raised that point when I was DDCA director but it did not change anything and hurt me a lot. There are many ex-Delhi players who can contribute so much to the game," he further added.

Another important factor in Delhi cricket was the poor infrastructure and their poor pitch. Gambhir claimed that he had given many suggestions to the DDCA with respect to improving Delhi cricket but all of them were overheard.

"I suggested an increase in daily allowance, indoor nets at Kotla, we need them because of the extreme climate in Delhi. Nothing happened there also. The most basic suggestion was change the pitch square but no action was taken on that also. Last IPL Delhi pitch was being criticised for being slow. Now another IPL is approaching and nothing has happened," he concluded.