5 players who made their former IPL franchises regret
In 2008, when IPL started with eight franchises, every team’s squad looked different from its current roster. The players were acquired by the franchises via an auction. While some of the players proved to be an essential part of the team with their performance and continued their collaboration with the team, some were allowed to leave.
In a professional cricket league like IPL, players have to move on and perform whenever they get a chance, regardless of the teams they are playing for. There are quite a few players who performed extremely well for their new teams and even excelled against their ex-teams in IPL.
Here is a list of players who made their ex-teams regret.
Note: Players like Adam Gilchrist, Rohit Sharma, Pragyan Ojha and R.P. Singh are not a part of this list because they opted to play for different franchises after their ex-franchise was defunct.
Gautam Gambhir
The left-handed opening batsman has been an absolute asset for the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), performing the dual role of a captain and an opening batsman. Gambhir started his IPL career for the Delhi Daredevils (DD) and was also their captain. He scored more than one thousand runs for the DD in first three years.
However, he was not retained by the Delhi-based franchise and subsequently was bought by KKR in 2011. After being named the captain in his debut season, Gambhir has led KKR to two IPL titles in 2012 and 2014.
The 34-year-old cricketer has scored 1829 runs for KKR and has 20 half-centuries to his name as well. Also, he is third on the list of all-time leading run-scorers behind Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma.
The Delhi-born player was overlooked by his hometown based franchise, who are yet to lay their hands on the IPL title. Moreover, Gambhir is one of the three captains who have won the IPL twice.