Kolkata Knight Riders’ captain Gautam Gambhir is known for his hot-headedness on the field. There have been numerous occasions when he was involved in altercations with rival players. One such incident took place between him and Pakistani player Kamran Akmal during 2010 Asia Cup in Sri Lanka.
Batting first, Pakistan scored a decent total of 267 with the help of half-centuries from Salman Butt and Kamran Akmal. Chasing the target, India were well placed at 167 for 2 by the end of thirty-fourth over when the infamous incident started. Saeed Ajmal was bowling the thirty-fourth over. It was the last ball of his over and Ajmal bowled a topspinner which Gambhir missed by a mile. Wicket-keeper Kamran Akmal went up immediately claiming a caught behind only for the umpire to turn it down.
Gambhir who was clearly not amused, walked straight up to Akmal during the drinks break and confronted him about the appeal. An ugly spat followed, and it could have turned uglier had M S Dhoni not intervened.
“It happened in the heat of the moment. When India and Pakistan play each other then obviously it is a tense game. Good or a bad thing you can say but whatever arguments happened between us was during the drinks break. Instead of showing advertisements during the break Neo channel opted to show our heated arguments,” Gambhir said during a chat show hosted by cricket comedian Vikram Sathaye.
When asked the main reason behind the argument he replied, “I had tried to play and missed it fully. He appealed in such a way that he thought that the ball hit the bat. Then I told him that there is no point in appealing because nothing like that happened, we just got into a heated argument and then it just got from bad to worse.”
Gambhir was heavily trolled and criticised when he was dismissed for a duck in the first three games of 2014 IPL.Talking about that Gambhir said that it was a very time for him especially him being the captain of the side.
“Obviously it would be a nightmare for any batsman specially being the captain of the side and scoring one run in four games is very tough,” he said.
But the performance of the team and Gambhir got better once the tournament returned back to India. The southpaw registered five fifties in a row and his team ended up winning the tournament.
Surely, something special had happened at that time.
“One special thing happened at that time is my daughter Aazeen was born. As soon as we came back from UAE I straight went to the hospital. The next morning I had a flight at 9’o clock to Ranchi. I could had missed that match if I missed that flight but I went and scored consecutive half-centuries in each match to win the tournament for my daughter,” Gambhir quipped.
Gambhir also shared an story explaining why former coach Gary Kirsten used to call him a banker.
“Gary used to call me a banker because he thought we both had some similarities between each other. He used to say me that my role in the Indian team is as similar as the role he had played for South Africa. He used to say that my job was to accumulate as many runs I can do for the team.”
The southpaw also revealed how Kirsten backed him to play despite poor form.
“I played the next match where I scored 50 odd runs and then I played the third test match in which I scored some about 70 runs. After that I was made captain for five one-day series against New Zealand and I scored two centuries in a series and ended up winning Man of the Series award. After that we went to South Africa and I scored four half-centuries in two test match series and looking at my form I was included in World Cup squad. If Gary opted to drop me from next match I would never had played World Cup,’’ Gambhir concluded.