The IPL 2026 is all set to kick off from March 28. So far, the schedule of only first 20 matches has been released due to state elections.
Ahead of the league, former South African cricketer Faf du Plessis heaped praise on Gautam Gambhir and also spoke about the Indian as a leader.
The South African said that Gambhir is always seen as a villain when it comes to playing against him.
“My perspective of Gambhir is obviously very different from the guys who play with him. He`s always the villain in the story when it comes to playing against him, but you respect that. And I think that`s the key thing with Gautam Gambhir, he`s so competitive. He does not worry for one second about being liked by anyone,” he said.
The former cricketer also said that a team would always want to beat Gambhir, considering the way he carries himself as the opposition. Faf also said that the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) was a stronger team under the leadership of Gambhir.
“From the outside, as a fellow leader playing against him, you want to beat him because of the way he carries himself as the opposition, but you respect the fact that he sets such high standards. That`s what good leaders do, and he`s created that since the day he started playing. If you look at his record, you have to take your hat off and say, from a leadership perspective, KKR with him was a stronger team,” he said.
KKR will begin their IPL 2026 campaign by playing a clash against the Mumbai Indians (MI) on March 29 at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
IPL 2026, Kolkata Knight Riders vs Mumbai Indians: Full Squads
Kolkata Knight Riders: Ajinkya Rahane (C), Manish Pandey, Sunil Narine, Rahul Tripathi, Tim Seifert (WK), Rinku Singh, Rovman Powell, Sarthak Ranjan, Finn Allen (WK), Rachin Ravindra, Cameron Green, Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Varun Chakaravarthy, Kartik Tyagi, Blessing Muzarabani, Akash Deep, Prashant Solanki, Matheesha Pathirana, Vaibhav Arora, Umran Malik, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Harshit Rana, Tejasvi Singh (WK), Daksh Kamra.
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma, Trent Boult, Suryakumar Yadav, Quinton de Kock (WK), Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Corbin Bosch, Hardik Pandya (C), Jasprit Bumrah, Ryan Rickelton (WK), Will Jacks, Mayank Rawat, Mayank Markande, Sherfane Rutherford, Raghu Sharma, Atharva Ankolekar, Tilak Varma, Ashwani Kumar, Raj Bawa, Danish Malewar, Robin Minz (WK), Allah Ghazanfar, Naman Dhir, Mohammed Salahuddin Izhar.
(With ANI Inputs)
