Gautam Gambhir and KKR. It's nothing less than a match made in heaven and it was on display throughout IPL 2024. The man who made KKR into a force to reckon with back in 2011, Kolkata's adopted son returned to the Knight's den ahead of this season and turned their fortunes around yet again.
KKR missed Gauti ever since the franchise parted ways with him after IPL 2017. The 2 titles KKR won in 2012 and in 2014 both came under Gambhir but the post-Gauti era produced no titles for the Knights.
The KKR management finally realised that they needed to bring the mastermind back and the return of Gambhir brought glory days back for the Knight Riders in his very first season as a mentor.
"Everyone in this group will be treated equally. There is no senior-junior, there is no domestic-international because we have got one mission that is to win this IPL. So everyone needs to follow that one simple path. On 26th May, we should be there, giving everything positive and it starts from today." These were the words by Gambhir to KKR players upon joining them as the mentor and the group responded gracefully.
It might be Shreyas Iyer who captained the Knight Riders but KKR was always Gauti's team, at least for the fans.
Shah Rukh Khan, KKR's co-owner giving a long kiss to Gambhir on his forehead after winning the title made it clear what he meant for the management.
From auction decisions to baking youngsters like Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Ramandeep Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi and others to bringing back the OG KKR culture, life came full circle for Gautam Gambhir.