Bangalore, April 04: Delhi Daredevils captain Gautam Gambhir has come out strongly defending his comments about the Rajasthan Royals, which earned him a reprimand from the IPL.
Gambhir had called Rajasthan an “ordinary” side, and said that apart from Yusuf Pathan there was no one else who posed a threat in the side.
Writing in his column for the Hindustan Times, Gambhir said:
“I’m going to say a few things here that might not make people happy, but I think they need to be said. Just because the people who are reportedly upset with something I’ve said about a cricketing performance are starry doesn’t mean I take it all back. I said
what I said and I stand by it.”
Gambhir did plead guilty to a level one offense, but said he couldn’t understand why there was an over-reaction to his comments.
“For instance, people said we [Delhi] gave an ordinary performance against Mumbai and we did. But we didn’t over-react or fuss about what anyone said. We picked ourselves up and raised the bar.
“I don’t believe in saying things I don’t mean. If you’re looking for platitudes or banal gestures, I don’t think you’ll get that from me. I don’t mean to sound arrogant, I’m not, but I also can’t be a hypocrite. More pertinently, I can’t be expected to get all worked up about comments made by people who have never picked up a cricket bat in their lives. If I listen to opinions seriously, it is from people who have played the game.”
Seeing that the person who reported Gambhir was Lalit Modi himself, Gambhir’s defense of his stand has raised eyebrows, while at the same time earned the batsman unstinted praise for having the guts to stick by what he said.
———Agencies