Sunil Gavaskar labels Rahmanullah Gurbaz as "slight copy of MS Dhoni"

Former Indian batting legend and 1983 World Cup winner Sunil Gavaskar has claimed that he sees a little bit of MS Dhoni in the batting style of Afghanistan opening batter Rahmanullah Gurbaz who will be featuring for the Kolkata Knight Riders in the upcoming 2024 IPL edition.

It will be Rahmanullah Gurbaz’s second consecutive season with the KKR, having been bought during the IPL 2023 auction for his base price of 50 Lakhs. Gurbaz made the headlines for his aggressive style of play and power-hitting ability and this year he is expected to display an even better performance.

Since IPL 2023, the 22-year-old has cemented his spot at the top for Afghanistan and also had a decent outing in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 in India last year, scoring 279 runs in 9 league stage matches. He had two 50+ scores and was a major reason behind the Afghanis finishing 6th in the CWC 2023 points table, barely missing out from the knockouts.

This year when he flies over to Kolkata for the preparatory camps for IPL 2024, Rahmanullah Gurbaz will find his fellow countryman Mujeeb Ur Rahman in the team along with a few new faces like 24.75 Crore buy Mitchell Starc, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey and KS Bharat among others.

He might even find it difficult to retain his spot in the KKR XI due to the presence of India national wicket-keeper KS Bharat due to his keeping excellence but Gurbaz is a much more complete T20 player than Bharat, so it will be interesting to see who KKR backs when the season begins.

Gurbaz’s power-hitting ability has made everyone his fan and not even Sunil Gavaskar is able to deny his talent. So much so that he even likened him to the legendary MS Dhoni who signed Gavaskar’s shirt last year.

“I have liked Gurbaz’s batting a lot based on whatever I have seen. He is extremely aggressive, and his batting is like a slight copy of MS Dhoni, and that is why I probably like it,” Sunil Gavaskar said via Star Sports. 

“For Doing That He Has To”, Sunil Gavaskar Explains Why He Will Pick Rahmanullah Gurbaz In KKR Playing XI

Sunil Gavaskar was praiseful of Rahmanullah Gurbaz for his gesture of helping the needy by donating money to the people on footpaths in India after the World Cup and the former stated that he will choose Gurbaz in his KKR probable XI only for that reason.

“When the World Cup ended, after that, the job he did, he gave money to the people sleeping on the footpath. For doing that, he has to definitely be in the team for me,” Gavaskar concluded. 

In his international career, Gurbaz has scored 1247 runs in the 50-over format, including 5 centuries and 4 half-centuries at a very good strike rate of 150. In the shortest format, he has 1271 runs including a century and 6 fifties in 49 outings for Afghanistan. Rahmanullah Gurbaz will have to make sure he experiences a great IPL season in order to head into the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 with positive momentum on his side.