[Watch] "We have come a long way from playing together" - Gautam Gambhir chats with Virat Kohli ahead of IND vs BAN 2024 series
Team India head coach Gautam Gambhir and former captain Virat Kohli recently sat down for a conversation, reminiscing about the various memories of their career. A video of the same was shared by the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) on their website.
The Delhi boys have shared numerous moments on and off the field, with Gambhir handing over his Man of the Match award to Kohli when the latter scored his first ODI hundred. Off the field, the two have been involved in some altercations in the Indian Premier League (IPL), the most recent coming in 2023 when Gambhir was a part of the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) coaching set-up and Kohli was playing for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB).
Both were part of India's 2011 ICC Men's ODI World Cup winning squad, stitching an important 83-run partnership for the third wicket. Speaking on that, Gambhir said in the video:
"The only way you can plan a run chase is when you are not looking at your individual score, you are looking at what you need to achieve and where you need to reach. What is the target where you want to be. That is where actually I found in the 2011 World Cup final. When people ask me about did I had to play that shot or why did I play that shot, the reason that I played that shot is because before that shot, I was only thinking about what we needed to chase."
He added:
"The moment you reach 97, you start thinking I'm just one shot away from getting my own milestone and how am I going to celebrate, the first Indian to score a hundred in a World Cup final. And the disappointment was not missing out on a hundred, the disappointment was giving the opposition a breather."
You can watch the video here.
Gautam Gambhir to coach Team India in the first IND vs BAN 2024 Test
Team India's upcoming Test series against Bangladesh will be Gautam Gambhir's first assignment in the red ball format. He had a mixed white-ball tour of Sri Lanka where Team India won the T20I series 3-0 while losing the ODI leg of the tour 0-2.
Team India take on Bangladesh in a two-match Test series, starting on Thursday, September 19, at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai.