Former KKR captain and opener Gautam Gambhir recalled a hilarious story of how Ashish Nehra trolled him for his three ducks in the 2014 IPL season.
Gautam Gambhir had a terrible start in the IPL 2014 season with the bat in the UAE. He bagged three ducks in a row in his first three knocks in IPL 2014.
In a recent podcast with ANI, Gambhir revealed that to have some fun with him, Ashish Nehra, his Delhi and India teammate, ordered a duck for him at dinner. Next match, Gautam Gambhir avoided a duck, but managed only 1 run.
“Four or five guys from Delhi were sitting together at the dinner table. Ashish Nehra ordered a duck. He told me to have the duck for dinner; otherwise, I might get another duck in the next match. I just tasted it. I scored one run in that match, and Nehra even messaged me after that,” Gautam Gambhir said on ANI’s podcast.
Gautam Gambhir reveals how Shah Rukh Khan back him despite three ducks
Despite Gambhir’s poor start with the bat in that season, KKR owner Shah Rukh Khan and the team management kept faith in him to turn it around. And he did exactly that. Gambhir finished the tournament with 335 runs, but, importantly, led KKR to their second IPL title, defeating the Punjab Kings in the final.
“2014 in Abu Dhabi, I started the IPL with three ducks in a row. I got a one in the fourth game. We had lost four out of our first five matches. We were coming back to Ritz Carlton after we lost the game. He was standing in the lobby. He took me on the side and asked what was happening. I said I was thinking of dropping myself.
“He told me, ’till you are there and you want to be there, you are not dropping yourself.’ He asked me to promise him that I would play every game until I was there. I got two or three half-centuries in a row and we won in 2014. That was my only cricket conversation with him in seven years of my captaincy,” the former KKR skipper said.
Gambhir has now rejoined KKR ahead of IPL 2024 in the role of a mentor.
