IPL: Gautam Gambhir opens up on KKR-CSK rivalry

New Delhi [India], May 21 (ANI): Kolkata Knight Riders mentor Gautam Gambhir spoke about the rivalry between Chennai Super Kings and Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League during the conversation with Ravichandran Ashwin on his YouTube channel on Monday.

Out of the 31 head-to-head meetings between the Knight Riders and the Super Kings in the IPL since 2008, CSK hold a significant advantage, clinching victory 19 times compared to KKR’s 11 wins, with one match resulting in no result.

The 42-year-old asserted that he has always felt that the Chennai and Kolkata side were very similar in approaching the game during his time.

“It’s not only the magnitude of the contest. When two good teams play against each other, it’s going to be an exciting and hard-fought game. I always felt that CSK and KKR were very, very similar in the way they approached the game,” Gambhir said on Ashwin’s YouTube channel.

The former left-hander further stated that the strategies of both sides were very similar.

“The way MS Dhoni used the spinners and we had three quality spinners as well. CSK had three quality spinners and probably the conditions, whether it was in Chepauk or in Eden at that time, were very similar. Cheepauk had bigger dimensions as compared to what Eden as a ground is. Our strategies were very similar to each other. That is the reason KKR had to be at our best from the tactical point of view to be able to beat CSK. That’s the reason why I always felt that CSK and KKR during those times were very very similar teams,” the former India opener added.

Gambhir returned to the KKR side as a mentor last year in November. Before that, he was with Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL 2021 and 2022 where performed the same role. Talking about his IPL career, the southpaw has played for the Delhi Capitals and KKR. He has won two IPL titles as a skipper with the Knight Riders in 2012 and 2014.

Talking about IPL 2024, KKR will play for a spot in the final when they take on Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in Qualifier 1 on Tuesday at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.

Kolkata Knight Riders squad: Shreyas Iyer (c), Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Jason Roy, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Anukul Roy, Suyash Sharma, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Vaibhav Arora, KS Bharat, Chetan Sakariya, Mitchell Starc, Ramandeep Singh, Angrish Raghuvanshi, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Gus Atkinson, Sakib Hussain.