Gautam Gambhir with Virat Kohli and Ajit Agarkar© AFP
Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir have played numerous matches together. They were part of the team that won the 2011 World Cup. Both hail from Delhi and started their career playing for the state team. The similarity does not end there. The duo is well known to be aggressive on the field, never shying away from expressing their opinions. Sreesanth, fire-brand former India pacer, recently picked an interesting all-time XI which had both the players. On Sportskeeda, Sreesanth was asked to pick an all-time XI of ‘calmest’ players and the pacer’s picks were interesting as all the name that he took have a reputation to be hot-headed.
“With Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli will open. Ricky Ponting at No.3 with Sourav Ganguly at two down. Ganguly will be the captain while Ponting is the vice-captain. Shahid Afridi. How can I forget Shakib Al Hasan, he does not even leave the umpires. Then Kieron Pollard, Harbhajan Singh, Shoaib Akhtar and Andre Nel. At No. 11, the one and only Sreesanth. How can I leave myself out from any playing XI,” he said.
While their on-field tiffs have well publicised, Gambhir has always maintained that he has a lot of respect for Kohli.
“What kind of a relationship I share with Virat Kohli… I think it’s between two mature individuals. On the field, everyone has got the right to fight for their own jersey and come back to a winning dressing room,” Gambhir had said after taking charge of the Indian cricket team as coach.
“But at the moment, we’re representing India, representing 140 crore Indians and I’m sure we’re going to be on the same page and try and make India proud.”
Piyush Chawla has played with both and shared an interesting anecdote.
“I and Gauti bhai were doing a show. A question was asked ‘When Virat completed his 50th century, which bowler did he take the single off? I couldn’t answer it, but Gambhir did it. And he’s like ‘Now don’t say there’s any tiff. Gauti bhai is all class. He is one of the best,” he said.
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