Former Indian cricketer and now cricket expert Gautam Gambhir has once again come up with a controversial statement over former Indian captain MS Dhoni. This time Gambhir has also dragged Kapil Dev – the first Indian captain to win an ODI World Cup and former Indian captain Virat Kohli.
Gambhir is not happy with the ‘cricketer’s worship’ culture not only by the fans but also by the cricket fraternity and media persons who hail a single cricketer as a superstar. Gambhir feels that every individual cricketer has an equal contribution to the team and hence they should get equal appreciation and coverage.
While having a conversation with Indian express on their show ‘Ideal Change’, Gambhir said, “Don’t create monsters in the dressing room. Only monster should be Indian cricket, not an individual”. Gambhir had this statement when asked about the brand creation in International cricket.
Talking further the former cricketer added, “Do you think that this whole hero worship chokes the next star to come up? Nobody has grown in that shadow. It was Mahendra Singh Dhoni earlier, it is Virat Kohli now,” he added before he made the most recent reference to Indian cricket, talking about the match against Afghanistan in Asia Cup earlier this month. The entire country had celebrated former captain Kohli after he had ended his 1021-day long century drought with a stellar 122 in the match. It was his first international century since November 2019 and his very first in T20I cricket. What had left Gambhir concerned was that while Kohli did make a meaningful contribution to the match and India’s win, there was another player who was equally incredible in the game with his record-scripting five-wicket haul – Bhuvneshwar Kumar.”
Giving an example of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Virat Kohli, Gautam Gambhir stated, “When Kohli got a 100 and there was this young guy from a small town of Meerut [Bhuvneshwar Kumar], who also managed to get five wickets, no one even bothered to speak about him. This was so unfortunate. I was the only one, during that commentary stint, who said that. He bowled four overs and got five wickets and I don’t think anyone knows about that. But Kohli scores a 100 and there are celebrations everywhere in this country. India needs to come out of this hero worship. Whether it’s Indian cricket, whether it’s politics, whether it’s Delhi cricket. We have to stop worshipping heroes. The only thing that we need to worship is Indian cricket, or for that matter Delhi or India.”
