(AFP Photo)
Former Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) head coach Tom Moody lavished praise on Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) mentor Gautam Gambhir for the franchise’s outstanding performance in the recently concluded IPL 2024.
According to Shreyas Iyer, the Knight Riders “played like invincibles” in IPL 2024, consistently delivering dominant performances. They topped the points table with 9 wins and 3 losses, finishing their group stage campaign with a record-breaking Net Run Rate of 1.428. KKR easily won Qualifier 1 to reach the final, where they triumphed over Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) to clinch the IPL trophy.
Kolkata Knight Riders secured their third IPL championship, with a key factor in all their title victories being the presence of Indian cricket legend Gautam Gambhir in the dressing room. He captained the team to victories in 2012 and 2014, and served as mentor in 2024.
Interestingly, KKR had finished seventh in the previous two IPL seasons before bringing in Gambhir as mentor for IPL 2024, which turned their fortunes around.
Gambhir made bold decisions, such as spending ₹24.75 crore to sign left-arm pacer Mitchell Starc and promoting Sunil Narine to open the innings. Narine excelled and was named Most Valuable Player of the Season, while Starc earned consecutive Player of the Match awards in Qualifier 1 and the final.
Gambhir has been widely credited for KKR’s success, with Tom Moody being the latest to praise the team mentor.
Tom Moody says If Gambhir was still at Lucknow this year, there was no way that Narine would have opened the batting this year.
During an interaction on ESPNcricinfo, Tom Moody said that Sunil Narine wouldn’t have opened the innings in IPL 2024 if Gautam Gambhir hadn’t moved bases from Lucknow Super Giants to Kolkata Knight Riders. He said:
“His ability to just get the ship in the right direction. He is very clear in what he believes the dressing room needed to go, the personnel that needed to be in that playing XI and the likes of Narine being back to the top of the order again. If Gambhir was still at Lucknow this year, there was no way that Narine would have opened the batting this year.”
Tom Moody further labeled Gautam Gambhir as a true leader and said that he credited a huge impact on the team. Moody said:
“A lot of things have just worked perfectly for KKR this year, in a positive way. I think Gambhir should be given a huge amount of credit for his impact as a leader. He has created stability and clarity that is the most important thing. When you see a long season in the IPL and if you have a number of different opinions and you have a loss here and there.”
“Suddenly it becomes confusion and you have all moving pieces. You saw that with KKR in previous years, where they chopped and changed their top order, they didn’t really know what their best combination was. Gambhir is being very clear in the dressing, he wants the team to go and he speaks like that as well,” he further added.