Gautam Gambhir surprised one and all with his decision to step down as Delhi Daredevils’ captain. Gambhir, who led Kolkata Knight Riders brilliantly for many years, took the decision to come back to his city and play in front of his home crowd.
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But, after Delhi’s poor show in the first few matches, Gambhir decided to step down and also announced that he will not take a single penny from the owners for the season because his performance has not been up to the mark.
As a result, young Shreyas Iyer was made the captain with a hope that he will bring fresh ideas and turn things around for Delhi Daredevils.
And that’s exactly what happened in the match against Kolkata Knight Riders. Shreyas Iyer played one of the best T20 innings of his life and scored 93 unbeaten runs off just 40 balls. Young Prithvi Shaw also made a good contribution at the top of the order. All in all, it was a good team effort by Delhi Daredevils that led to a significant win.
Interestingly, Gautam Gambhir did not feature in the playing XI but he was seen cheering for the boys from the dugout. Munro was brought in as a replacement opener for Gambhir for the game against KKR, and as captain Iyer confirmed during the press briefing after the game, it was Gambhir himself who decided to step back and let someone else take his place. Read Shreyas Iyer’s reply on dropping Gambhir from the playing XI here:
“I didn’t make any call to be honest,” Iyer said. “It wasn’t my decision to drop him. He himself decided to sit out, which was really courageous decision with him being the captain in the previous matches. The respect for him has gone really high. It’s really [good to] see when a captain, if he’s not playing well, he backs out. Colin [Munro] came in and gave us the desired start.”
