President Of India Confers Padma Shri To Gautam Gambhir
Mar 16, 2019 at 11:34 PM
On Saturday (16th March), the Indian President Ram Nath Kovind gave the Padma Shri award to the former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir. He was one of the successful Indian cricketers during his cricket career.
The 37-year-old former Indian cricketer was one of 112 nominated people to achieve the Padma awards this year.
After receiving that award, Gautam Gambhir thanked the Indian cricket supporters and his critics. He claimed that both had played a part in his journey.
This is for all the supporters of Indian cricket and my critics. Both have played a part in my journey…some day will discuss who played more than the other @BCCI #padmashriaward pic.twitter.com/zrMrAEikKB
— Gautam Gambhir (@GautamGambhir) March 16, 2019
Gautam Gambhir was a famous cricketer during his career. The talented left-handed top-order batsman provided some unforgettable and world-class performances during his career.
Gautam Gambhir’s brief cricket career
Gautam Gambhir made his international debut in April 2003 through the ODI format. On 11th April 2003, he made his international debut in an ODI against Bangladesh at Dhaka.
Later in November 2004, the Delhi cricketer made his Test debut during the Mumbai Test against Australia. During India’s first ever match in ICC World T20 history which was against Scotland at Durban (on 13th September 2007), he made his T20I debut.
Gautam Gambhir played crucial roles to take the national cricket team to the new higher level. The left-handed batsman played prominent roles for India during their victories in 2007 ICC World T20 and 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup.
In 2007 ICC World T20, Gautam Gambhir was the second most run-scorer in the tournament. He scored 227 runs in six innings with an average of 37.83.
Meanwhile, in 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup, he finished as the sixth most run-scorer in that tournament. Playing nine innings in that tournament, he scored 393 runs with an average of 43.66.
In both those tournament finals, Gautam Gambhir played brilliant innings to guide the national side to win those crowns. He was the highest run-scorer (75 runs) in 2007 World T20 final while he was the highest run-scorer (97 runs) for India in 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup final.
Apart from those tournaments, Gautam Gambhir also played brilliant roles for the national team in many other international cricket matches.
The left-handed batsman played 58 Tests, 147 ODIs and 37 T20Is where he scored 4,154 runs (average 41.95), 5,238 runs (average 39.68) and 932 runs (average 27.41) respectively. He was the former no.1-rank Test and T20I batsman.
Gautam Gambhir played 198 first-class matches, 299 List A matches and 251 T20 matches. In his professional career, he scored 15,153 first-class runs (average 49.35), 10,077 List A runs (average 36.91) and 6,402 T20 runs (average 28.96).
In last December, Gautam Gambhir announced his retirement from professional cricket. During his final first-class match (also his final professional cricket match) in last December, he scored a century.