Delhi Daredevils on April 27 stunned all his fans after they excluded their former skipper Gautam Gambhir from Playing XI during match number 26 of the Indian Premier League season 2018 against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Ferozshah Kotla Stadium in New Delhi.
Delhi’s new skipper Shreyas Iyer announced Gambhir’s exclusion from the team’s playing XI during the toss, which he lost to KKR skipper Dinesh Karthik who invited Delhi to bat
Earlier, Gautam Gambhir stepped down from Delhi’s captaincy following team’s poor show in the IPL 2018. The Delhi team have lost five of their six matches in the ongoing IPL 2018 season, languishing at the bottom of the points table.
Gautam Gambhir has been a part of IPL since it’s inaugural season in 2008. The last time Gambhir missed a match in IPL was against Royal Challengers Bangalore in Bengaluru on 25 Mar 2010.
Soon after Gambhir excluded from DD’s Playing XI, Twitter got flooded with angry reactions from his fans. Here are some of them:
DD and KKR are facing off for the 22nd time in the Twenty20 format but the first time without Gautam Gambhir in the playing XI of either side. #IPL2018 #DDvKKR
— Sampath Bandarupalli (@SampathStats) 27 April 2018
Iyer dropped Gautam Gambhir. He is all set to become next Dhoni. #DDvKKR
— Akshay (@AkshayKatariyaa) 27 April 2018
For the first time in 8 years Gautam Gambhir will be missing an IPL game. #DDvKKR
— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) 27 April 2018
Gautam Gambhir last played an IPL game as a player on 22nd May 2009 against the Deccan Chargers. After that, he has played all games as a Captain.
— BrokenStats (@Broken_Statz) 27 April 2018
Gautam Gambhir is a legend & will he forever!#DDvKKR
— VIRAT’S DHONI (@Cricketician_) 27 April 2018
Gautam Gambhir IPL Career May Be End With Bat.
Hope And Wish Rest Of Life Will Be Fine Of Gauti.
We Will All Miss You On Cricket Ground. #GautamGambhir #IPL2018 #DilDilli #DDvKKR #KKRHaiTaiyaar #KKRvDD #Criconlive pic.twitter.com/F9Hd3dBgAM— Criconlive.com (@criconlive) 27 April 2018
And by the way, when I think about Gautam Gambhir, I will not remember him for the fact that he was dropped by a franchise team in a league T20 tournament. I will remember him for scoring 97 high quality runs at the biggest stage of them all.
— Abhishek (@Sajjanlaunda) 27 April 2018
Shreyas Iyer dropped Gautam Gambhir in his first ever match as captain. It seems, Shreyas Iyer has taken some suggestions from MS Dhoni before the match.#KKRvDD
— Sunil- The Cricketer (@1sInto2s) 27 April 2018
While addressing the press conference on April 25, Gambhir said ‘stepping down from captaincy’ was his personal decision and there was no pressure from the franchise.
“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,” Gambhir said at the press conference.
Gambhir, who was bought by the Delhi franchise for R 2.8 Crore during IPL players’ auction this year, 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.”
Delhi needs to win every match now if they want to secure their berth in qualifiers.
Teams,
Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Chris Lynn, Sunil Narine, Robin Uthappa, Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik(w/c), Andre Russell, Shubman Gill, Mitchell Johnson, Piyush Chawla, Shivam Mavi, Kuldeep Yadav.
Delhi Daredevils (Playing XI): Prithvi Shaw, Colin Munro, Glenn Maxwell, Rishabh Pant(w), Shreyas Iyer(c), Vijay Shankar, Rahul Tewatia, Liam Plunkett, Amit Mishra, Avesh Khan, Trent Boult.
