formats during his playing career. He is also the man who played the two most pivotal knocks for the Indian cricket team as they chased global glory. Gambhir was India’s highest scorer in the 2007 TW20 final and the 2011 ICC World Cup final. Two matches where India were in a difficult position and Gambhir’s calm presence in the middle brought them out of a rut and helped MS Dhoni and his team become world champions in both teh 20-over and 50-over formats.
But all this almost did not happen as the Delhi opener contemplated retiring the from the game after not being selected for the 2007 ICC World Cup in the West Indies, a campaign which ended in India getting knocked out in the group stage itself.
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“In 2007, when I missed the 50-over World Cup, that was the lowest moment in my cricketing career. I had given up on cricket. Before that, I had missed both U-14 and U-19 World Cups. In 2007 I thought I was the closest to play the World Cup, but when they did not include me in the squad, I had given up on cricket,” Gambhir said at an event.
He finished the maiden T20 World Cup as the tournament’s leading run-getter but it wasn’t an easy start for the southpaw.
“Then I was chosen in Twenty-20 World Cup in 2007 and I got dismissed for a duck in the first match against Pakistan. But as fate has it, I finished as the leading run-scorer in the World Cup and we ended up winning the tournament so one should never give up,” he added.
Gambhir retired from all forms of cricket in 2018, and then joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. He won from the East Delhi constituency in the Lok Sabha elections and has now established himself as a party face in the capital.
