“Wrong to say that only about Kohli or Rohit” - Gautam Gambhir believes all players in the dressing room have the same passion and dedication

Former opener Gautam Gambhir has urged cricket experts to stop equating terms like passion, energy, and dedication only with a couple of superstar names like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma in the Indian team. According to Gambhir, all the players who represent the nation play with the same passion and dedication.

Both Kohli and Rohit earned plenty of plaudits for their performance in the 2023 ODI World Cup at home in October-November. The two were the top two leading run-getters in the competition with 765 and 597 runs, respectively.

In an interaction with Sportskeeda, Gambhir hailed Kohli for maintaining amazing fitness levels throughout his career. He, however, expressed disappointment over pundits associating passion and dedication only with star players like Kohli and Rohit.

“People talk a lot about passion, energy and dedication. All players in the dressing room have the same passion and dedication. No one has less passion or dedication. Wrong to say that only about Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma. All players who play for India will have dedication," he said.

"Yes, Kohli has worked a lot on his fitness and I would also urge the upcoming players to work on their fitness. It is something which is in your hands. Youngsters must learn from Kohli about fitness,” Gambhir commented.

Giving the example of how Shreyas Iyer has tackled his short ball problem, the 42-year-old added:

“Everyone works on their game. Shreyas Iyer has also worked hard on the short ball. No one talks about it. He has worked hard and every player does it.”

After a poor start to the World Cup, Shreyas turned around his fortunes and ended up contributing 530 runs in 11 innings at an average of 66.25 and a strike rate of 113.25.

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“First hundred is always very special” - Gambhir on giving his Player of the Match award to Kohli in 2009

During the interaction, Gambhir also opened up on his gesture of giving his Player of the Match award to Kohli in the 2009 Kolkata ODI against Sri Lanka. The former cricketer downplayed the incident and said that he only wanted to encourage a youngster who had scored his first international hundred.

“Honestly, I didn’t do anything which I shouldn’t have done. People don’t need to talk about it too much. The reason why I gave it was that when I came into the team as a youngster, I would have expected the same from my seniors. The first hundred is always very special,” he said.

“We were chasing 300-plus and were 20/2 at Eden Gardens after Sachin and Sehwag got out. Virat had played a wonderful knock in that match. I wanted to make a young cricketer’s first hundred memorable,” Gambhir added.

Gambhir (150*) and Kohli (107) added 224 for the third wicket as India chased 316 in 48.1 overs with seven wickets in hand.