Team India head coach Gautam Gambhir has shared his views on the Indian T20I captain Shreyas Iyer as a leader. Notably, Gambhir and Iyer worked together at the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the IPL 2024 season.
Speaking to JioStar, Gambhir asserted that Iyer’s willingness to be flexible as a batter is his best leadership quality. He went on to add that during the IPL 2024 season, Iyer was even ready to give off his No.4 position to some other batter.
“Look, my first experience with Shreyas was when I went to KKR in 2024. Obviously, he was captaining the side, and the best thing I liked about Shreyas was that he was willing, at times, to leave his position as well at No. 4. That is when I realised that the first and foremost quality of a good leader, and I’m not going to talk about captaincy, is how selfless you are. Shreyas has that quality,” Gambhir told JioStar.
“That probably was the biggest tick that Shreyas can carry for the rest of his journey as a captain. He was so flexible that he was okay if someone went ahead of him. It happens very rarely that a captain, who is probably your main batter as well, sacrifices his position for the team’s cause, whether for someone else’s impact or from a left-hand-right-hand combination point of view. He is willing to sacrifice his position,” he added.
Later, Gambhir also heaped praise on India’s ODI and Test skipper, Shubman Gill, who took over captaincy from Rohit Sharma across both formats.
“Leaving out anyone in Indian cricket from the playing eleven is always going to be tough. But when you have to do that as a young captain, it is probably the toughest job for any coach and captain to do it. So far, he has done that. He has actually ticked all the boxes,” said Gambhir.
“I feel that he has done all the right things. He has had a bit of a tough time in One Day cricket. But I am sure things will turn around because he has done all the right things,” he concluded.
