Gautam Gambhir clarifies feud with Kamran Akmal

India v Pakistan matches are high pressure and high emotion encounters. Although tempers haven’t flared up in recent times, the old school matches would bring in a rather strange sense of patriotism. Sure enough, the tempers once again flared up when Gautam Gambhir locked horns with the now-discarded wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal in a forgettable incident in the 2010 edition of the Asia Cup.

The incident occurred when Akmal claimed catch behind the stumps when Gambhir was batting. Although the on-field umpire turned it down, a tempestuous Gambhir walked up to Akmal in the drinks break and the two were involved in a heated argument. MS Dhoni, the Indian skipper who was batting with Gambhir at the time, put in a herculean effort to separate the two players.

Clarifying the ill-fated feud in a recent interview, Gambhir did his level best to downplay the infamous incident.

“It happened in the heat of the moment. When India and Pakistan play each other then obviously it is a tense game.

“Good or a bad thing you can say but whatever arguments happened between us was during the drinks break. Instead of showing advertisements during the break Neo channel opted to show our heated arguments.”

When asked the main reason behind the argument he replied, “I had tried to play and missed it fully. He appealed in such a way that he thought that the ball hit the bat. Then I told him that there is no point in appealing because nothing like that happened, we just got into a heated argument and then it just got from bad to worse.”

Gambhir also went on to add the importance and influence Gary Kirsten had on his career. He also revealed that Gary Kirsten made him play the similar role the latter had played for the Proteas during his illustrious stint with them.

“Gary used to call me a banker because he thought we both had some similarities between each other. He used to say me that my role in the Indian team is as similar as the role he had played for South Africa. He used to say that my job was to accumulate as many runs I can do for the team.”

Gambhir said, “I played the next match where I scored 50 odd runs and then I played the third test match in which I scored some about 70 runs. After that, I was made captain for five one-day series against New Zealand and I scored two centuries in a series and ended up winning Man of the Series award.

The 34-year old southpaw also added that Gary Kirsten allowed Gambhir to travel back home to be present for the birth of his daughter.

Also, read – I am surprising myself a bit: Virat Kohli