Former India opener Gautam Gambhir on Sunday recalled a funny incident in which he had a bad start to the 2014 IPL season. At the start of the 2014 season, Gambhir, then the captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders, got out for consecutive ducks in the first three matches of the tournament. Gautam recounted a funny incident involving former fast bowler Ashish Nehra, in which he was asked to have a duck for dinner by Nehra in order to not get out on a duck for a fourth time.
Speaking on ANI’s podcast, Gambhir revealed, “Four or five guys from Delhi were sitting together at the dinner table. Ashish Nehra ordered a duck. He told me to have the duck for dinner; otherwise, I might get another duck in the next match. I just tasted it. I scored one run in that match, and Nehra even messaged me after that.”
After being dismissed for ducks for the third time in a row, Gambhir revealed that he had a chat with the team’s co-owner Shahrukh Khan. Gambhir said he wanted to be dropped from the playing 11, but Shahrukh was against it.
“2014 in Abu Dhabi, I started the IPL with three ducks in a row. I got a one in the fourth game. We had lost four out of our first five matches. We were coming back to Ritz Carlton after we lost the game. He was standing in the lobby. He took me to the side and asked what was happening. I said I was thinking of dropping myself.
“He told me, ’till you are there and you want to be there, you are not dropping yourself,’ He asked me to promise him that I would play every game until I was there. I got two or three half-centuries in a row and we won in 2014. That was my only cricket conversation with him in seven years of my captaincy,” Gambhir recalled.
After a disastrous start to the tournament, which saw them lose four matches in the first five, the franchise from Kolkata staged an epic comeback and won the tournament for the second time in the history of the IPL. Gautam Gautam led KKR to the second title. After he departed from the franchise, KKR has never won an IPL title. Ahead of the IPL 2024 season, the team from Kolkata has named Gautam as their new mentor.
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