'One Player Can't Win You Major Tournament': Gautam Gambhir Lashes Out at PR, Marketing Machinery for Hyping Individuals Over Team

1983, 2007 and 2011 are regarded as momentous years in Indian cricket history which brought them two ODI and one T20 world cup titles.

Kapil Dev was immortalised when he captained an unfancied Indian team to their maiden ODI title in 1983 while in 2007 and 2011, MS Dhoni led them to T20 and ODI world cup triumphs respectively sealing his place in cricket history.

However, Gautam Gambhir reckons that associating only one individual with major title wins is unfair as it’s not possible to win such major events on the back of one player.

He pointed out the contribution of legendary Yuvraj Singh in India’s victorius run in the 2007 WT20 and 2011 ODI World Cup where he was the player of the tournament despite battling cancer.

“Despite suffering from cancer, Yuvraj produced amazing performances. He always says I won India world cup but to me, if there’s anyone who got India into the finals of the T20 World Cup and ODI World Cup, it has to be Yuvraj," Gambhir told News18 in an exclusive chat.

He added, “Again, it’s unfortunate when we talk about 2007 T20 WC, 2011 ODI World Cup, we don’t talk about Yuvraj. This is all marketing, PR to project one individual above everyone else."

When probed further which individual he was referring too, Gambhir shied away from taking any names but responded, “We all know who keeps getting credited for winning the 2007 and 2011 world cups. An individual cannot do that, the entire team is responsible. A major tournament cannot be won by a single individual and if that was the case, India would have 5-10 world titles."

He then asked the audience that was present in the studio for the interview if any of them remembers the contribution of Mohinder Amarnath in the 1983 ODI World Cup.

“How many people talk about Mohinder Amarnath? Ask anyone from here how many times they have seen Mohinder Amarnath’s picture, what his contribution was? In semifinal and final, it was Mohinder Amarnath who was the man of the match. This is the problem. Still today we keep showing that picture of Kapi Devji lifting the trophy. Do show Mohinder Amarnath’s picture as well," Gambhir said.