Gautam Gambhir Blasts Brad Hodge For Questioning Virat Kohli’s Commitment To Indian Team
Mar 29, 2017 at 11:51 AM
India opener Gautam Gambhir has thrown his support firmly behind Virat Kohli and blasted former Australia international Brad Hodge for questioning the India skipper’s priorities.
Kohli was ruled out of the final contest of the four-match series after failing to recover from the shoulder injury that he had sustained while fielding in the second day of the third Test at Ranchi. The 28-year old sat out for the rest of the day but did come out to bat for India’s innings and then fielded in the final two days. At Dharamsala, he came to the ground with the team and had bandages on his right shoulder. He did participate in the warm-up sessions but did not bat in the nets.
During the pre-match conference, he had said he would take the field only if he regains 100% fitness but he failed to recover in time and the team management took no risk even when the series is on the line.
However, Hodge felt that the India batsman gave the series-decider a miss to recover in time for the upcoming edition of the Indian Premier League which starting from 5 of next month.
“You would think that your captain would get out there and get amongst the fight and get in there,” Hodge had told Fox Sports. “You’d hope as a sportsman that he’s seriously injured.
“Because if you miss one game of Test match cricket and you’re fronting up the next week for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) versus whoever … you’d be pretty dirty if he didn’t front up to a Test match and try and win a valuable series against Australia.
He had further said that the players in past have recovered in time for the cash-rich league.
“It’s happened before,” Hodge had said. “Not just Virat but there are many players that have come up to IPL time and … look, we know it’s a cash-rich tournament, there’s some money up for grabs. There are certain players that will limp in, to IPL time, to make sure they get there and perform well.
However, Kohli’s senior teammate Gambhir feels otherwise and said that the India skipper is being targeted by individuals just to grab the spotlight.
“That’s absolutely not valid,” Gambhir told CNN. “I feel that someone who’s playing for their country and captaining it would never want to miss a Test match and would definitely want to play for India more than any other tournament. That’s always been the case.
“Knowing Virat he would have never done that and these people, look if you want to be in the headline you can say anything you want and it’s just about making a headline or trying to get your name in the press by making such statements,” he added. “If you don’t know the extent of the injury you should not be talking about it.”