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Former assistant coach of Kolkata Knight Riders Vijay Dahiya has revealed how Gautam Gambhir urged the crew administration to signal off-spinner Sunil Narine in the squad forward of the 2012 IPL public sale. Gambhir, who was appointed in 2011 to lead KKR, in his first season as skipper, took the crew to its maiden IPL playoffs and as he tried to higher it in the following season, the skipper was positive he needed Narine in the crew.
In the 2011 Champions League, Narine performed for Trinidad and Tobago and with a match haul of 15 wickets, was instrumental behind the crew’s success. Narine’s exploits satisfied Gambhir of rewarding the off-spinner with a KKR contract.
“I remember before the auction, he was in Australia, the Indian team was touring Australia. He called up and said, ‘No matter what, I want Sunil in my side.’ And that’s the kind of leaders you need,” Dahiya stated of Gambhir to SportsKeeda.
Ever since, Narine has been an integral a part of the KKR set-up. In eight seasons, Narine has picked up 122 wickets, making him IPL’s eight-highest wicket-taker together with a hat-trick in opposition to Kings XI Punjab in 2013. In 2012, Gambhir led KKR to a maiden IPL trophy and repeated it two years later. Both seasons, Narine grabbed 24 and 21 wickets respectively.
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Dahiya lauded Gambhir’s management abilities by citing an instance. Yusuf Pathan, after becoming a member of KKR forward of the 2011 season, had a poor season in 2020, scoring simply 194 runs. But as a substitute of benching him, Gambhir backed the all-rounder to the hilt, and the choice paid off. Over the following 4 seasons, Pathan scored 1273 runs with six half-centuries, three alone in 2016.
“He (Gautam Gambhir) is a leader who gives you the freedom to go out and express yourself. If you look, Yusuf Pathan, Gautam Gambhir, and Rajat Bhatia were three players who played all the games in that season,” recalled Dahiya.
“Because of the conditions, Rajat was there, but Yusuf, he was backed. There was pressure on Yusuf because he was not having that sort of a run. Gautam backed him. He had chats with him; the support staff also had chats with him and backed him.”
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