A couple of pictures of his camaraderie with Jay Shah has surfaced, fans speculate - Gambhir is confirmed as next India coach.
Chennai: It was a night that belonged to the Kolkata Knight Riders. The KKR side went onto beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by eight wickets on Sunday to clinch their third IPL title. Following the win, it was KKR mentor Gautam Gambhir’s bromance with BCCI secretary Jay Shah that has sparked speculations. It is no secret that with most of the likely Australians pulling out of the India Head coach job, Gambhir is surely the frontrunner and now after a couple of pictures of his camaraderie with Jay Shah has surfaced, fans speculate – Gambhir is confirmed as next India coach.
Here is the picture that is going viral:
Jay Shah had a chat with Gautam Gambhir and later hugged GG.
pic.twitter.com/hl13xem7LN
— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) May 26, 2024
Earlier, Andre Russell picked up three wickets with the ball, while Mitchell Starc set the tone in the first over with the wicket of Abhishek Sharma. The Hyderabad franchise were bundled out for 113.
Chasing 114, KKR lost Sunil Narine cheaply when he went too early in his flick off Pat Cummins and thick leading edge was caught by deep mid-wicket, after hitting a pulled six. Venkatesh launched a counter-attack by dancing down the pitch to smack Bhuvneshwar Kumar for two successive sixes, after glancing him for a four to take 20 runs off the third over.
From the other end, Rahmanullah Gurbaz brought out his cut and loft to take two fours, followed by outside edges giving him two more boundaries. Venkatesh cut and pulled fiercely off T Natrajan for consecutive fours, before flicking and swiping handsomely to take six and four respectively off the left-arm pacer, as KKR reached 72/1 at the end of power-play, also the highest total in a six-over phase of the IPL finals.
Gurbaz took over by sweeping Shahbaz Ahmed for six and lofting the left-arm spinner for another maximum, happening on the either side of pulling Jaydev Unadkat for four. But Shahbaz had the last laugh by trapping a sweeping Gurbaz lbw.
Shreyas Iyer opened his account by reverse-sweeping Shahbaz for four, followed by Venkatesh getting his fifty in 24 balls and he fittingly finished off the chase with a single to clinch third IPL title for KKR. It also the first time Shreyas becomes an IPL winning captain on his second attempt, after being excluded from the Test team and BCCI central contracts earlier this year.
Brief Scores: Sunrisers Hyderabad 113 in 18.3 overs (Pat Cummins 24, Aiden Markram 20; Andre Russell 3-19, Mitchell Starc 2-14) lost to Kolkata Knight Riders 114/2 in 10.3 overs (Venkatesh Iyer 52 not out, Rahmanullah Gurbaz 39; Pat Cummins 1-18, Shahbaz Ahmed 1-22) by eight wickets.
(With IANS inputs)
