You're Captaining For The Last 8 To 9 Years: Gautam Gambhir Urges Virat Kohli To Win IPL Trophy

Former India opener Gautam Gambhir has said the biggest challenge for Virat Kohli in IPL 2020 would be to lead Royal Challengers Bangalore to the title. The India captain has been with the franchise since the inaugural season in 2008 but is yet to lay his hands on the elusive IPL trophy.

While he has proved himself as a batsman, his captaincy record is not that impressive. Virat Kohli, who is the leading run-scorer in the history of the IPL, is leading RCB since 2013. Fast forward to 2020 and RCB are still searching for their first IPL title.

In fact, the Bangalore-based outfit is one of the most inconsistent teams in the league in the last few years. Ever since Kohli took charge, they made it to the playoffs just once when in 2016 their skipper scored nearly 1,000 runs and led the team to the final.

And as Kohli gears up for another season, Gautam Gambhir has urged him to fight for the trophy. He cited the examples of MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma while explaining that winning the trophy is the most important aspect for a player.

“The biggest challenge for Virat Kohli the batsman is that they need to win the tournament necessarily. Rohit Sharma has won this tournament four times and MS Dhoni has won it three times,” Gautam Gambhir told Star Sports.

“And you are captaining for the last 8 to 9 years. You might be scoring huge runs on your own, which he will score this time as well, but ultimately you want to win the trophy as a captain and as a player.”

“If you ask any captain if he would like to score 700 runs or win the tournament after scoring 500 runs, he will go for the latter,” he added.

Gautam Gambhir also took a cheeky dig at Virat Kohli, saying that when a player opens the batting, he always gets more opportunities to score more runs compared to those who bat in the middle order.

“And when someone opens the batting, whether it is Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma or I, when I was playing, we have more opportunities to score runs as compared to someone who plays in the middle order.

“So, opener will definitely score 500-700 runs but if you will ask the RCB captain, then the biggest challenge in front of Virat Kohli is that he scores runs but more important than that is to win the tournament or reach the playoffs or the finals,” he said.

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