Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir opened up on former Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, stating that his contribution to the team was incomparable. Recently, Dhoni had to face harsh criticism from a few cricket experts after he struggled to rotate the strike during the second T20 International against New Zealand in Rajkot. Former cricketers like VVS Laxman, Ajit Agarkar and Aakash Chopra think that Dhoni shouldn’t be preferred over the youngsters anymore across the T20I format. However, Gambhir thinks that Dhoni deserves the credit.
While speaking to sports anchor Jatin Sapru in Kolkata Knight Rider’s weekly TV show Knight Club, Gambhir stated how Dhoni used to manage things when he was a captain. He said,
You need to give credit to MS. People have criticized his captaincy. What he has done for Indian cricket, not a lot of people have done that, especially the way he handled the lows. It is very easy to handle the highs. But the way he has handled the lows has been remarkable. Especially in Australia and England (2011-12) where we were hammered (4-0) and still being as calm as he was, not showing too many emotions, I think a lot of credit needs to go to MS.
Gambhir also revealed how much he enjoyed playing under Dhoni. He said,
I have played under Sourav, Rahul, Viru, and MS. I felt, I enjoyed a lot under MS. We had great fun; we are around the same age as well. He was pretty chilled out. He kept things very simple which were very good.
In the second T20I, India had a mammoth target of 197 runs to chase against New Zealand in Rajkot. After the Indian openers failed to make a mark, skipper Virat Kohli and wicket-keeper MS Dhoni took the charge of the chase. However, MS was seen struggling at a certain point to rotate the strike. India lost the game by 40 runs while Dhoni had to face all the criticism.
In the decider game held in Trivandrum, India bounced back and beat the Kiwis by 6 runs, thereby clinching the series by 2-1.
