GAMBHIR Quits As Delhi Daredevils Skipper : Shreyas Iyer named Captain
DELHI born Gautam Gambhir, left handed opening batsman, has voluntarily quit captaincy of Delhi Daredevils owned by infrastructural giant GMR group due to the team’s poor performance in the on- going 11th IPL. The former national player based in Delhi has announced to forgo his entire salary of 2.8 crore INR for the season and has categorically said he was not under pressure from the management and the staff to step down. Gambhir, 36, who led KKR to two IPL titles, had returned to his first franchise as captain for the current season. DD, languishing at the bottom of the points table, will be led by batsman Shreyas Iyer aged 23. Gambhir has scored 85 runs in five innings including 55 in the Daredevils’ first game despite being the IPL’s fourth-highest run-getter with 4217 from 152 innings. He led Kolkata Knight Riders owned by Bollywood star SRK to two IPL titles. His scores in the current OPL are 8, 3 and 4. His season strike-rate of 96.59 is higher than only Colin Munro (66), Daniel Christian (79.16) and Vijay Shankar (90).Gambhir is credited with turning around KKR’s fortunes with his innovative captaincy, crucial batting and selection of certain uncapped Indian and experienced overseas players, but whether he makes the Daredevils’ playing XI now that he is not captain remains to be seen. Cricket fans recall that Gambhir give up captaincy only a day after Daredevils CEO Hemant Dua tweeted a series of statements to the franchise’s fans upset over its back to back poor performance. Dua informed them that “bold decisions are around the corner”. For all those crying foul about @GautamGambhir let me be clear, he is the finest man, I have met who is passionate about cricket, works hard and is super committed for success of @DelhiDaredevils …his team from the city we all love…#DilDill #DilliDhadkega #VIVOIPL.Dua’s final tweet has “For all those crying foul about Gambhir let me be clear, he is the finest man, I have met who is passionate about cricket, works hard and is super committed for success of Delhi Daredevils … his team is the city we all love”.Shreyas Iyer, who has been named skipper of the struggling Daredevils which has so far finished sixth on the points table with six wins from 14 games. But he faces a very tough road ahead to qualify for the play-offs. They currently languish at the bottom of the IPL 11 leader board with one win from six matches.Speaking at a presser on Wednesday at the Feroze Shah Kotla in Delhi, Gambhir said: “It was my decision. I haven’t contributed enough to the team. I had to take the responsibility being the leader of the ship. I feel it was the right time.””May be I was too desperate to turn things around and that can backfire. It could be the reason. I just couldn’t handle the pressure and when you don’t do that, you have to own that up as a leader,” Gambhir added. CEO Hemant Dua and Coach Ricky Ponting were also present. His successor Shreyas Santosh Iyer plays for the Mumbai cricket team and plays One Day International and Twenty20 Internationals for the India national cricket team. He is a right-handed batsman and right-arm off break bowler, said Dua replying to a query.
