Former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir has always been critical of the ‘hero worship culture’ in the country. Gambhir who is widely acknowledged as one of the best team players during the heydays of his cricketing career has often come down hard on the fans for worshipping players over the years.
Earlier, he echoed that, it is due to the hero-worshipping culture, that Indian cricket is going through a dismal run in the ICC events. Team India last won the ICC title back in 2013 under the leadership of Mahendra Singh Dhoni in which the team defeated England in England to clinch the Champions Trophy.
It’s been a decade since India last won a major honour. Meanwhile, Gambhir expressed his views on KL Rahul’s disappointing celebration after the latter missed his century in India’s World Cup 2023 opener against Australia at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.
Gautam Gambhir blames KL Rahul-like mindset for India’s ICC Trophy drought
While KL Rahul was batting on 91*, India required 5 more runs to ace the run-chase. At that time, KL Rahul did an inner engineering in his brain by trying to hit a four and a six to score a century. However, he timed the ball way too exquisitely off Pat Cummins’ which was more than enough to sail over the ropes.
As a result, KL Rahul remained unbeaten on 97* and soon after that, he looked visibly upset for missing out on a century. Meanwhile, Gambhir who was a team player himself has called for Indian players to focus on helping the team win games rather than their interests towards personal milestones.
“If you score 30, 40 or even 140, what matters in the end is whether the team won or not. I think our obsession with stats is one of the biggest reasons why we have not won an ICC tournament in so many years,” he added in an exclusive interaction with Sportskeeda.
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“For me, it really does not matter whether you score a hundred or you score whatever you end up scoring if the team ends up winning. If you are staying until the end to take the team to victory, that is all that matters. Let’s get done with his obsession over stats. Scoring a hundred does not matter, whether you can take your team to victory or not, that matters,” the former Indian opener added.