India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has hailed former batter Gautam Gambhir as the “greatest team man” he ever played with. Gambhir was the one who once vouched to see Ashwin in India’s ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 squad. In the latest episode of Kutti Stories with Ash, not intentionally returning the favour though, Ashwin was wax lyrical about Gambhir terming him as the “most misunderstood cricketer”.
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Between 2010-2016, Gambhir and Ashwin represented India on 66 occasions across formats. Although both of them never shared an IPL dressing room, they played against each other enough to have a good idea of each other’s strengths. Additionally, they were also part of India’s ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 title-winning campaign.
R Ashwin Calls Gautam Gambhir The “Greatest Team Man”
2011 World Cup was a memorable one for the Indian team where most of the players performed on various occasions. Part of the below mentioned episode uploaded on Ashwin’s YouTube channel, legendary broadcaster Harsha Bhogle highlighted how Gambhir never received the deserved attention unlike captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni or all-rounder Yuvraj Singh.
Ashwin took no time in agreeing to Bhogle’s assessment. Further adding his two scents on the left-handed batter, Ashwin iterated how everyone misunderstands Gambhir because of his nature. Not just in the final, but Ashwin believed that Gambhir was one of the biggest assets for the Indian side throughout the tournament.
“The greatest team man, the greatest individual in terms of taking a fight on and a very nice guy. He [Gautam Gambhir] is in your face. He might not be very expressive but he is out there wanting a fight and wanting a battle. He is not only a fantastic player of spin, he was also a great reader of the game,” Ashwin said on Kutti Stories with Ash.
Ashwin further added that Gambhir was a selfless cricketer during the course of his career. Additionally, Bhogle also reflected on how he thought Gambhir was a great fit at No. 3 despite being an opener.
Gambhir was India’s second-highest run-scorer in 2011 World Cup after legendary Sachin Tendulkar. He scored 393 runs at an average of 43.66 with the help of four half-centuries. Ashwin, on the other hand, played just two matches picking four wickets at an economy of 4.65.
Gautam Gambhir Had Vouched For R Ashwin’s Inclusion In India’s World Cup Squad
Eight years after the world event in 2011, Ashwin had missed out on making it to India’s ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 squad. If truth be told, it wasn’t a major surprise as he wasn’t playing white-ball cricket for India at the time. After playing an ODI against West Indies in 2017, Ashwin had to wait all the way till 2022 to play his next match in the format.
The Indian selectors and team management had decided to move on from the duo of Ashwin and all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja in order to give opportunities to wrist-spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal.
As quoted by The Indian Express in January 2019, Gambhir had felt that Ashwin could’ve been an ideal addition to the Indian unit in England. According to Gambhir, a finger spinner like Ashwin could dominate in conditions where there is a good bounce on the wicket. He had also cited Australia spinner Nathan Lyon‘s example to prove his point.
“I still feel that [Ravichandran] Ashwin is somebody we should look at. I’ve always believed that a quality spinner is a quality spinner – irrespective of whether he is a wrist-spinner or a finger-spinner.”
It is worth noting that Ashwin was a part of India’s ICC T20 World Cup 2021 squad despite not playing a single T20I since 2017. He even played the subsequent T20 World Cup in Australia last year. Ahead of the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup 2023, he was included into the squad as a last-minute change in spite of having played a handful of bilateral white-ball matches because of an injury to all-rounder Axar Patel.
