Former Indian opener and one of the most successful captains in the history of the Indian Premier League, Gautam Gambhir has called for Virat Kohli’s removal from the captaincy of the Royal Challengers Bangalore. He made his comments on the ESPNCricinfo's post-match show after yet another flop show from him with both bat and as a captain as the RCB went crashing out of the tournament after the loss in the eliminator against the Sunrisers Hyderabad.
“100%, because the problem is about accountability. Eight years into the tournament [without a trophy], eight years is a long time. Tell me any other captain…forget about the captain, tell me any other player who would have got eight years and wouldn’t have won the title and would have still continued with it. So it has to be accountability. A captain needs to take accountability,” Gambhir said in a live interaction on ESPNCricinfo.
Gambhir directly questioned the reluctance of Kohli in admitting his failure as the leader of the side. He urged Kohli to put his stand up and show some guts like a good leader by accepting his failures in not winning the IPL title in the eight long years of his captaincy stint with the RCB.
Gambhir was no short of criticising the freehand Kohli has been getting from the RCB management as he asked about the fate of other captains such as Ravichandran Ashwin who was sacked as the captain of the side after two seasons of failure for the Kings XI Punjab franchise. He also took the examples of MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma and said that the only fact that they have been successful in winning the IPL title multiple times, they have been allowed to be the captain of their sides for such a long period of time.
Gautam Gambhir has been one of the greatest captains of the IPL and had led the Kolkata Knight Riders to triumphs in the 2012 and 2014 season. The Royal Challengers Bangalore could not get it right on the big night against the Sunrisers and were proved not good enough, especially with the bat - their strongest suit when all were at stake for the team and its legacy in the history of the league.
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