Today India created history by winning over New Zealand on their soil after 41 years. This magnificent and obviously deserving victory was resulted because of exuberant performances by almost every individual of the team. It may be the centuries scored by Sachin, Dravid, Laxman, Gambhir or may be some world class bowling by Zaheer, Bhaji, Ishant or the perfect leadership of the captain Dhoni. Everybody make sure to chip in at some point or the other and made their presence felt. All and all it was a fabulous team effort which continued the winning streak of this legendary Indian cricket team.
But in this fury of victories and accolades almost everyone has sidelined the most consistent player in the team - Gautam Gambhir. He scored an ample 450 runs with 2 centuries and 1 half century & played the vital role in this commendable victory. I remember, the first significant performance by this chap was during the T20 world cup. He was the highest run getter in the tournament. He scored some 250 odd runs with an average of around 40 with 3 half centuries, which is simply splendid in T20 form of cricket. But he was nowhere in the credit list when it came to sharing the honour of becoming world champs. The 6 on 6 streak of Yuvraaj and the so called majestic captaincy of Dhoni way surpassed the unfathomable performance of Gambhir.
After the T20 WC this chap had no looking back. He proved his mettle in every form of cricket & against almost all the great guns of world cricket. He took no time in converting his image of a splendid T20 player into a world class ODI and Test Player. No matter against whom he was playing he was consistently delivering the same charismatic performance. The teams of Australia, Sri Lanka, England and recently New Zealand all witnessed some world class batting from this gentleman. In the recent series against New Zealand he played a marathon inning of over 10 hrs in Napier test to save India from the almost a sure defeat.
Despite of delivering consistent performance from last couple of year, I somehow feel he is not getting the proper recognition and respect in the team which he is worthy of. He is still treated as the underdog in the team. He himself accepted in an interview that before this series he was not at all confident about his place in Indian team. Though after the Napier match he was called as the second Wall of Indian cricket, but this tag soon got lost in the Dhoni, Bajji song of Indian Media who are unreasonably treated as god of Indian cricket. I mean I simply can’t understand if a player is scoring consistently in all forms of cricket for over 2 years but he is still not confident about his place in the team & cannot grab the attention of Media then who can be sure about it? Is it something like who are good at words and have good rapport with the management can be relaxed about their future? Is our Media biased with the Masala news?? Do media have the sense of making a good thing good and a bad thing bad??
I am sure not everyone will agree to this, but this is how I feel about the kind of attention and recognition Gauti is getting. I just wish he will get the desired credibility and appreciations for the top quality performances which he is producing on every pitch against every country.
