Gautam Gambhir can be misleading at times but when it comes to crunch times, he has always delivered
If that is actually true, Gautam Gambhir should be well on the way to being anointed, sorry appointed, India’s next coach. The former little left-hand bat has all the bases covered, on and off the field. As a tigerish batsman who overcame a lack of obvious flair and the kind of talent that makes fans go “wow” Gambhir fought for every run. He worked the ball across his pad to leg, cleared his front foot and crunched past midoff, rocked back to swivel and pull off his hips and cut with a view to keeping the ball on the ground, despite being what you might politely call a shortie.
Gambhir was a serious player, no pun intended. He was not a great friend of team-mates in the dressing-room, he was not the life of the party and he sure as hell did not smile unless he absolutely had to.
But, Gambhir is, and was not, a grumpy person. He has the look of the perennial angry young man, because, let’s face it, he won’t back down from certain causes. Does he always pick the right ones? This is hard to say, given his politics. But, once he has committed to something, Gambhir will give what he can. Let us leave the constituency of Delhi East alone for the moment, as Gambhir has, and focus on cricket.
When your correspondent first met Gambhir, he was part of an India Under-19 team playing against English counterparts at home. Picking at his toenails absentmindedly, gouging skin, here was an intense young man making the least of the hotel bed made available to him in Chennai.
Talking nineteen to the dozen — and he is even
