Former India captain Gautam Gambhir criticised the very prevalent 'hero worship' culture in Indian cricket and asked the fans and media to give equal importance to even the smallest contributors.
During a conversation with the Indian Express, Gambhir explained that when Virat scored a hundred against Afghanistan, everyone hailed Kohli but Bhuvneshwar Kumar's 5-wicket haul went unnoticed.
'When Kohli got a 100 and there was this young guy from a small town of Meerut (Bhuvneshwar Kumar) who also managed to get five wickets, no one even bothered to speak about him. This was so unfortunate. I was the only one, during that commentary stint, who said that.' The culture of 'hero worship' leads to these problems, Gauti added.
The 2007 and 2011 World Cup winner blamed social media for creating so much hype around a player as he stated that 'social media is the most fake thing in the country because you are judged by how many followers you have.
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'He traced the beginnings of this 'hero worship' culture back to 1983 as he explained 'When India won the first World Cup, it was all about Kapil Dev. When we won in 2007 and 2011, it was Dhoni.
'We need to move out of that shadow of 1983, 2007, and 2011. It’s done and dusted. That’s history,” “Start talking about 2022 and 2023,” Gambhir added.