Former Indian cricketer and World Cup hero Gautam Gambhir has slammed the Indian cricketers for displaying too much camaraderie on-field with the players of arch-rivals in the middle of the games.
Gautam Gambhir’s comments came during the Asia Cup 2023 game between India and Pakistan. Gambhir, who played an instrumental role in India’s iconic 2011 World Cup win, blamed franchise cricket as one of the main reasons why cricket games these days don’t have too much aggression.
Gautam Gambhir Slammed Indias Players
Speaking on the mid-innings show on Star Sports, Gambhir stated that the players should leave their friendship with each other outside the cricket ground. He said:
“When you play on the field for your national team, you must leave the friendship outside the boundary ropes. Game face hona zaroori hai. Dosti bahaar rehni chahiye. There has to be an aggression in the eyes of both sets of players. You can be as friendly as you want after those six or seven hours of cricket. Those hours are very important, because you’re not just representing yourself, you’re representing a nation of over a billion,”
He added: “These days you see players of rival teams patting each other on the back and exchanging fist bumps during a match. You would never see that a few years ago. Aap friendly match hi khel rahe ho.”
Meanwhile, his statements were well received by the fans, who also echoed his sentiments and slammed the Indian players for showing too much friendliness with the rivals. Among many, popular Twitter user and cricket analyst Madhav Sharma also took to his official X account and expressed his disappointment.
In his Tweet, Madhav Sharma expressed how passion and aggression are missing from the players’ eyes. He wrote:
“.@GautamGambhir is absolutely spot-on. The passion and aggression which we used to see in his eyes, especially against Pakistan, is missing now. There’s too much friendliness and too many smiles.”
Check out his Tweet:
.@GautamGambhir is absolutely spot-on. The passion and aggression which we used to see in his eyes, especially against Pakistan, is missing now. There’s too much friendliness and too many smiles. https://t.co/N8V0v8oV7J
— Madhav Sharma (@HashTagCricket) September 2, 2023
