Kolkata Knight Riders mentor Gautam Gambhir has expressed optimism that he will leave the franchise in a better place when he leaves his job. Gambhir led KKR to two IPL titles in 2012 and 2014 and returned to the franchise as a mentor ahead of IPL 2024.
KKR could not qualify for the playoffs in the previous season, managing six wins out of the 14 games they played in the league stage under the captaincy of Nitish Rana. Shreyas Iyer will take back the captaincy duties for the upcoming season.
Gambhir would look to guide the young players on the right track and get the best out of them along with head coach Chandrakant Pandit.
“I can assure you that whenever I leave this place (KKR), we will be in a much better position. I want to make one thing clear. I didn’t make KKR successful, KKR made me successful. KKR made me a leader,” said Gambhir speaking at a promotional event ahead of the upcoming IPL season.
Gambhir revealed that he has the backing of co-owner Shah Rukh Khan and managing director Venky Mysore.
“I’m a very tough guy to handle. I have to thank SRK (Shah Rukh Khan) and (Venky) Mysore (Managing Director of KKR) for putting up with my tantrums all these years. He (Shah Rukh) told me the same thing that he had told me when I joined as a player. ‘This is your franchise, make it or break it’,” Gambhir added.
KKR will begin their campaign against Sunrisers Hyderabad at Eden Gardens, Kolkata on March 23.
KKR IPL 2024 SQUAD
Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Shreyas Iyer (c), Jason Roy, Sunil Narine, Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy, KS Bharat, Chetan Sakariya, Mitchell Starc, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ramandeep Singh, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Gus Atkinson, Sakib Hussain.
