A number of cricketers have stories of rags to riches, of coming from a poor financial background and becoming multi-millionaires.
A few also have a story of their own, a different one: where despite having a good family business option, they chased their dreams of playing the game and representing their country at the highest level, and some are fortunate to win World Cup as well.
One of them is former India batsman Gautam Gambhir, who came from a fairly affluence background, but opted to not take his father’s multi-crore business and instead pursure his dream of becoming an internatioal cricket and winning the World Cup for his country.
Gautam Gambhir was born in New Delhi to Deepak Gambhir, who manages a textiles business, and Seema Gambhir. Many youngsters in India would have given up on their artistic and sporting dreams and joined their father’s successful business.
But not Gautam Gambhir. He had started playing cricket at the age of 10. He received his schooling from Modern School, New Delhi and graduated from Hindu College, University of Delhi. At the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy in Delhi, he was coached by Sanjay Bharadwaj and Raju Tandon. His first major callup came in 2000 when NCA invited him to Bangalore.
Cricketer, Gautam Gambhir hit 20 international centuries in his career
Gautam Gambhir made his ODI debut in 2003, Test debut in 2004 and T20I debut in 2007. Some non-centuries are more memorable than centuries. That is the case with Gambhir’s two famous knocks in two World Cup finals.
In the 2007 T20 World Cup final against Pakistan, Gambhir top-scored with 75 runs and India eventually won by only 5 runs. Then, on the biggest night of his career, in the 2011 final against Sri Lanka at the Wankhede, Gambhir stepped up with the bat, scoring 97 runs, making a significant contribution to help India win the trophy.
He had immense success in Test cricket as well. Gautam Gambhir is one of the few India batsmen who have attained the number 1 ranking in ICC Test batmen rankings, in 2009, when he was in supreme form with the bat.
Coming to the IPL, he captained KKR to their only two IPL trophies, in 2012 and 2014, and led the franchise with great passion that created a huge fanbase for KKR in the IPL.
After retiring as a player from the game, Gambhir has turned to public service and dedicated himself to the betterment of the public of Delhi by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and he became a Member of Parliament in 2019 after winning in the Lok Sabha Elections.
