A serious accusation has been levied against Gautam Gambhir by his former Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) teammate Manoj Tiwary. The batter with fifteen India cricket team caps to his name alleges that Gambhir, who was KKR’s mentor last Indian Premier League (IPL) season, picked Harshit Rana over Akash Deep in the first two matches of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 due to his bias.
Gautam Gambhir has KKR bias?
For the unaware, Tiwary had called out Gambhir for taking all the credit for KKR’s title run in the 2012 IPL season and labeled him a hypocrite. The Team India head coach didn’t say anything himself, but two KKR players, Harshit Rana and Nitish Rana (former now), took to social media to support Gambhir.
Tiwary says it makes sense that both Nitish and Harshit defended Gambhir. “Why wouldn’t Nitish Rana and Harshit Rana, for example, support Gautam Gambhir? Harshit Rana played in Perth in place of Akash Deep. How was that possible?” Tiwary told the Hindustan Times.
Why was Harshit Rana picked over Akash Deep in BGT?
Tiwary isn’t the first to point this out. There were theories before that the reason Gambhir didn’t play Harshit against Bangladesh or in South Africa was because had the pacer earned a T20I cap, KKR wouldn’t be able to retain him as an uncapped player. Later when Harshit was named in the squad for BGT despite no experience in first-class cricket, people again pointed out Gambhir’s KKR bias.
“What did Akash Deep do wrong? He bowled fantastic spells against Bangladesh and New Zealand. As a fast bowler, you dream about bowling in friendly conditions, but you dropped him and went in with Harshit, who doesn’t have that much first-class experience. Akash Deep has fabulous records. That is a completely biased selection. That is why players will come out and defend him,” said Tiwary.
“The process of picking players and selecting them in the playing XI is not happening properly. Akash Deep was dropped in favour of Harshit Rana. If you thought Harshit was so good, why didn’t you continue with him for the rest of the series? Akash Deep doesn’t have a voice,” the former KKR player concluded.
