Picture Credit: Twitter
Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir, the two of the biggest cricketers in India, come from the sporting hotbed of the country, the city of Delhi. While they have achieved great successes on the field as teammates for India, including the ICC Cricket World Cup triumph in 2011, their relation on and off the field is nothing short of being fraught, most of the time.
At the current stage, Virat Kohli is still a big part of the scheme of things in Indian cricket, shouldering the responsibility of batting lineup for the last 15 years or so. Meanwhile, Gautam Gambhir has moved towards commentary and coaching roles, after retiring from international cricket a few years ago.
In recent times, Gautam Gambhir has been very critical of Virat Kohli in commentary, about the way he plays his cricket and conducts himself on the field. These two almost came to blows on a cricket ground earlier this summer in the IPL 2023, while Kohli was a player for RCB and Gambhir was the mentor of LSG.
With that, SportsTiger looks back at the five comments of Gautam Gambhir on Virat Kohli that went viral.
1. "You can't be a role model in this manner"
During the third and deciding Test of the three-match series in South Africa in January 2022, when a DRS call went against India, the captain Virat Kohli and most of his teammates weren’t too happy and reacted in disgust at the host broadcaster. Gautam Gambhir wasn’t too impressed with how the Indian team conducted itself at that time, while commenting on how Virat Kohli, the captain, wasn’t doing himself any favours by reacting like that either.
The 41-year-old was quoted as saying at that time, “No matter what you say, stuff like he (Virat Kohli) plays with his heart on his sleeve, this reaction was an exaggerated one and you can't be a role model in this manner. No budding cricketers would want to see this kind of a reaction, especially from the Indian captain.”
