KKR vs SRH IPL 2024: Will Gambhir vs Cummins offer a glimpse of the future?

Gautam Gambhir as mentor of KKR has transformed the performance of the team

Sometimes, home isn’t where the roots are, but where the heart is. So it was for Gautam Gambhir in the Indian Premier League (IPL). He may have begun and ended his playing career at the Delhi Daredevils (as the Capitals were called then), but it was in Kolkata that he established himself as a league legend.

Eyebrows were raised when the franchise shelled out $2.4 million for him at the 2011 auction, but in seven seasons at the helm of the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Gambhir won two titles (2012 and 2014), and also inspired three other playoff runs. His win percentage (56.55) with KKR was better than Rohit Sharma’s with Mumbai Indians (55.06). And in the six seasons after he left, KKR only made it to the knockouts twice.

His transformative effect has been apparent as the team stormed to the top of the league table in IPL 2024. After  disastrous seasons in 2023, the West Indian duo of Sunil Narine and Andre Russell, both well into their 30s, were considered ready for the chopping block. But Gambhir’s return to Kolkata as team mentor has revitalised them to an unimaginable degree. Narine, asked to open without fear of failure, has smashed 461 runs at a strike-rate of 183, while Russell has scored even faster (185).

Both have taken 15 wickets apiece, with Narine giving away a miserly 6.63 runs an over. The Trinidadian was in no doubt as to where credit was due. “With GG (Gambhir) coming back, he gave me the confidence and his assurance that I’ll open the batting,” he said, after a 49-ball century against Rajasthan Royals earlier in the tournament.

Another team that pressed the reset button before the start of the 2024 campaign was Sunrisers Hyderabad. After the ugly divorce with David Warner, their greatest player, the franchise had endured three miserable years, with just 13 wins. Their solution was to splash out Rs 20.5 crore for Pat Cummins, Australia’s captain.

As a teenager, Cummins showed magnificent all-round skill to win his country a Test match on debut at The Wanderers in Johannesburg. Multiple stress fractures of the back then made him wait half a decade for his next Test cap, but since his return, Cummins has established himself as one of the world’s great pace bowlers.

After replacing Tim Paine as Australia’s captain, he has won an Ashes series, the World Test Championship and the World Cup. That Midas touch has already transformed Hyderabad into dangerous title contenders, with a batting line-up that has already breached 200 six times. As much as his leadership, Cummins’ hit-the-deck bowling and pace variations have been crucial. Only T Natarajan (17) has taken more wickets than his 15 for Sunrisers and the economy rate of 9.23 is excellent given the run-fests that Hyderabad have been involved in.

Gambhir has been touted as a future India coach. On Tuesday evening, at the Narendra Modi Stadium where Cummins and Australia shattered millions of Indian hearts last November, he will get a proper audition.