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Chandigarh, May 30
On Tuesday, Virat Kohli spoke for the first time about his neck injury, through a video posted on Twitter, since the news of the injury and his pullout from his county cricket stint came out.
But just like the Indian cricket board looked a little cagey about the nature and extent of Kohli’s injury when making it public, the Indian skipper did little to clear the air in the brief video. “Hey guys, lot of hard work going on and the rehab is on. Just doing what I can do best and whatever I’m allowed to do at the moment,” he said, refraining from throwing any light on the injury, its seriousness and the time needed for recovery. He, though, sent out a message about the virtue of hard work to his massive army of followers on Twitter. “A shout out to all you guys. Keep working hard and keep at it. Hard work is the only way, hard work always pays off. Have a great day, cheers.”
Initially, there were reports and speculation that Kohli was struggling with a slipped disc. BCCI, though, refuted the reports, saying the Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper suffered a neck sprain during their match against Sunrisers Hyderabad on May 17. Interestingly, Kohli didn’t skip his team’s final league match against Rajasthan Royals two days later.
He’s scheduled to have a fitness Test on June 15. Everyone will be hoping he clears it, and is fit as a fiddle for the England tour.
Gambhir on egos
of team-owners
You can always trust Gautam Gambhir to say something interesting, regardless of the consequences. In his newspaper column, the former Delhi Daredevils captain has referred to the “ego” of “most” team owners in the Indian Premier League (IPL). “Most owners are successful outside the business of IPL. Just like cricketers, they hate to lose,” Gambhir wrote. “But while cricketers can sportingly accept defeat against a better team, team owners are ruthless as they measure everything against Return on Investment. Given the circumstances, if the owners interfere in on-field matter, can you really blame them?”
In other words, Gambhir is saying that team owners find it difficult to sportingly accept a defeat because for them, it’s business, not sport; he’s also saying that the owners do interfere in on-field matters.
We’ve heard stories of IPL team owners berating coaches and captains after defeats. Cricketers know that T20 matches are almost like lotteries, and one innings of 20 balls can win a game for you, or one over can lose it, too. But team owners don’t see it like that: They think that hard work must lead to guaranteed success. Remember that famous photograph which depicted Vijay Mallya lecturing Rahul Dravid about cricket? That was 10 years ago. The owners haven’t learnt much since then. Over the last few years, stories have emerged from various IPL franchisees about owners berating players or coaches on cricketing issues.
Last month, Kings XI Punjab co-owner Preity Zinta got involved in a heated conversation with mentor Virender Sehwag after their loss to Rajasthan Royals. KXIP dismissed reports of a falling-out between the two, saying that their “open and transparent culture has been misconstrued and highlighted in a negative manner”. Incidentally, a previous coach, Sanjay Bangar, was also reported to have been “given a firing” by Zinta in 2016.
Sehwag and Bangar, prudently, didn’t discuss the alleged spats publicly. Who wants to tread on fragile egos and thus endanger future earnings?
But Gambhir doesn’t care too much about all that.
