“Gautam Gambhir played with the ego of MS Dhoni,” ex-India pacer narrates incident after Kohli-Gambhir fight
When KKR locked horns with RPS, Gambhir's field setting worked wonders for his team when Dhoni was batting.
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MS Dhoni, Gautam Gambhir
After the ugly fight between Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli that took social media by storm, former India pacer Irfan Pathan recalled an incident where Gambhir ‘played with the ego of MS Dhoni‘. This dates back to the time when Chennai Super Kings (CSK), the team that Dhoni leads right now, was facing a ban of two years.
During that time, Dhoni was leading Rising Pune Supergiants (RPS) and Pathan was part of the team, while Gambhir was the captain of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at that time. When KKR locked horns with RPS, Gambhir’s field setting worked wonders for his team when Dhoni was batting, for he set a field like Test cricket by bringing players close to the batsman. Gambhir used to hand the ball to the spinners and Dhoni used to fall cheaply after playing a sluggish innings almost every time.
“Gautam Gambhir played with the ego of MS Dhoni when he was the captain of KKR. He was the only one who succeeded in rattling him for years,” Pathan said. “MS was rattled to the core by the field setting,” he added.
KKR vs RPS in 2016 match recap
CSK were batting first and were tethering at 74/4. When MS Dhoni entered the field, Gambhir perfectly used Piyush Chawla‘s spin attack, for he was in red-hot form in that match, surrounded Dhoni with the fielders, and gave no room to him to play shots.
Another reason why Irfan Pathan can recall that incident perfectly is that he himself was batting alongside Dhoni. He had to sacrifice his wicket due to a mix-up with the skipper. Dhoni was batting at five off 14 balls when he went for a run but Pathan realized there was no run there. As Dhoni was already halfway through the track, he asked Pathan to go for the run which he did and ended up sacrificing his wicket.
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Gouri Das
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