"Not even Sri Lankans who lost that night have cried this much" - Fans slam Gautam Gambhir for making another statement on MS Dhoni and 2011 World Cup
Gautam Gambhir has once again come under fire from Indian fans on social media after calling on the public to celebrate other players and not just MS Dhoni for the team's success under him.
The former Indian batter urged fans to not put all their focus on the individual celebration of Dhoni for India's World Cup wins in 2007 and 2011. He asked them to also praise Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Suresh Raina and others who contributed.
"While we celebrate MS Dhoni's innings in the final, we should celebrate these other efforts as much," Gambhir said in an interview with RevSportz. "No one innings could win India the trophy. It was a collective effort and should be celebrated as such. It is because of social media that we don't do it. Social media is biased and we all know that. But social media doesn't make it the truth."
"There is always a tendency on social media to celebrate individuals more than the team," he added. "In doing so, what happens is we don't celebrate key performers who had as much a part to play. And that's an issue for sure. All I will say is we should celebrate the entire team. While we celebrate Dhoni, we should also celebrate the others who all played very important roles in the Indian win."
Fans, however, reacted negatively to these comments since Gambhir has talked about this many times earlier too. Some fans feel he is 'obsessed' with the subject. Here are some of the best reactions:
"I was on the ground for literally 92 overs of the final" - Gautam Gambhir
In a not-so-controversial statement, Gambhir, who scored 97 in the 2011 World Cup final, also recalled why he could not celebrate with the rest of the team after the win.
"I don’t think people realize that I was on the ground for literally 92 overs of the final," Gambhir added in the interview. "I was out there batting for 41-42 overs of our innings. The truth is, after I got out and went back to the changing room, I was exhausted. Drained completely.
"So while I was massively happy and emotionally invested in the celebrations, physically I was exhausted. We had a team celebration late in the night, and while I went there for a few minutes, I just came to my room and crashed. I did nothing else because I was fatigued."