Former captain of Kolkata Knight Riders, Gautam Gambhir is one of the most successful captains in Indian Premier League history. The dynamic leader guided his team Kolkata Knight Riders to two championship victories in 2012 and 2014. Many fans and cricket experts believe that Gambhir’s contribution to the KKR team remains unparalleled to date.
Over the years, several players of KKR have talked about the leadership skills of Gambhir and how the former Indian cricketer led the team from the front.
Now, one of the players, Manvinder Bisla, who was an integral part of the batting department of KKR during Gambhir’s reign as skipper, heaped praises on Gambhir. Bisla revealed how Gambhir ‘was fiercely protective of his players’ as a captain. He revealed:
“As a captain, Gautam was fiercely protective of his players. He was like an older brother. Win or lose, he needed to just see focus and intensity. Even when I wasn’t converting starts, he was never short of encouraging words if he saw the effort. So chats with him at different times during the competition gave me the reinforcement that I was very much valued. Vijay Dahiya, our assistant coach, was also a great motivator. These two made it easy for me to deal with both success and failure,”
Recently, another player KC Cariappa, who was also a find of Gautam Gambhir, recalled his experience of playing under the two-time IPL winning captain Gambhir in the IPL 2015 edition of the IPL and hailed him as a “very good captain”.
“Gambhir was a very good captain. He was a little strict in terms of bowling discipline, and effort on the field was something he wouldn’t compromise,” Cariappa told Sportskeeda.
“Outside the field, he didn’t bother you. On the field, you had to give your 100% and that’s what I loved,” he added.
