Dilip Vengsarkar Calls Gautam Gambhir As An ‘Underrated Player’

Former Indian cricketer and the Chairman of selectors of the BCCI, Dilip Vengsarkar always praises the former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir. Recently, Vengsarkar once again opened up his feeling on Gambhir where he called him an underrated player.

The left-handed batsman Gautam Gambhir was one of the great top-order batsmen in Indian cricket history who served for the Indian national cricket team between 2003 and 2016. In his 13 years of international career, Gambhir faced many ups and downs but still played 58 Tests, 147 ODIs and 37 T20Is where the left-handed batsman scored 4154 runs (average 41.95), 5238 runs (average 39.68) and 932 runs (average 27.41).

Apart from being the no.1-ranked Test and T20I batsman, Gambhir also played many important roles for the Indian team to achieve great success in international cricket. While MS Dhoni-led India won the ICC World T20 2007 and ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, Gambhir not only played the crucial roles in those entire tournaments, but he was also the top run-scorer for his team in both those finals.

Gambhir also won the ICC Test Player of the Year award in 2009. During that 12-month voting period, the left-handed batsman scored 1269 runs in eight Tests (average 84.60), including five centuries and four half-centuries.

While Gambhir experienced the rise in his international career from the second half of 2007, he maintained that till January 2013. But then he was removed from every format of the Indian team, majorly due to his weak form, and only managed to play four more Tests till 2016.

Gautam Gambhir should have played much more for India: Dilip Vengsarkar

Calling him an underrated player, Dilip Vengsarkar added that Gambhir had a lot of talent, but his anger and emotions became a strong barrier. The 1983 Cricket World Cup-winning team member Vengsarkar believes that the talented Gambhir deserved to play more matches for the Indian team.

Vengsarkar told TOI, “Underrated player. Had a lot of talent but couldn’t control his anger and emotions. I feel that for the kind of ability he had, he should have played much more for India.”

The former Delhi cricketer Gautam Gambhir retired from all forms of cricket in December 2018 after hitting a century in a Ranji Trophy match (against Andhra).