IPL 2019 | Gautam Gambhir and Sourav Ganguly disagree on Virat Kohli’s prolonged RCB captaincy

IPL 2019 | Gautam Gambhir and Sourav Ganguly disagree on Virat Kohli’s prolonged RCB captaincy

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Former Kolkata Knight Riders captains Gautam Gambhir and Sourav Ganguly have contradicting views on Virat Kohli’s fruitless prolonged captaincy at Royal Challengers Bangalore. Appointed as the captain in 2013, Kohli has led the franchises to the playoffs only twice failing to win even once.

The bitterness between Gambhir and Kohli hasn’t been a secret since the public feud between the two in IPL 2013. Kohli was appointed the skipper of RCB that season itself and after getting dismissed in a match against KKR had decided to make a remark to the celebratory KKR group before returning to the stands. 

Gambhir, then a senior member of the Indian team, didn’t take this behaviour lightly and was seen walking angrily towards Kohli before Rajat Bhatia separated them. Though both of them have downtrodden the matter since then, it seemed that the former KKR skipper was yet to get over it. Asked whether Gambhir could on the same pedestal as MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma, Gambhir was quick to state that Kohli was lucky to get so many chances at the leadership despite winning no title at all.

“There are people who have won the trophy three times. MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma. So I think he has a long way to go. You cannot compare him to someone like Rohit or Dhoni at this stage. He has been a part of RCB, and captaining RCB for the last seven to eight years, and he has been very lucky and should be thanking the franchise that they stuck with him. Because not many captains have got such a long rope where they haven’t won a tournament,” said Gambhir reported HT.

Though Kohli hasn’t led RCB to a title despite coming agonizingly close in 2016, the skipper has been unparalleled with the bat. He had tallied 634 runs in 2013, a whopping 973 in 2016, and looked to get back to form once again last season, making 530 runs in 14 matches. These figures rightly hint why the franchise has stuck by their skipper even with the results not going their way.

And it was echoed by one of Gautam Gambhir’s predecessors in KKR, Ganguly, who was of the opinion that Kohli deserved to be the captain of Bangalore and could change the fortunes of the team.

“If you talk about Virat Kohli and keeping him as a captain, just look at what he has done. What he has done with the bat in every format of the game. Absolute champion. And he deserves to be captain of RCB for whatever period of time. I am sure he will turn it around,” said Ganguly.

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