Ajinkya Rahane-led Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) will lock horns with Axar Patel’s Delhi Capitals (DC) in the 48th match of the IPL 2025 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Tuesday.
Ahead of his team’s must-win game, KKR pacer Harshit Rana spoke about the absence of Gautam Gambhir in their dressing room in the ongoing IPL 2025 season.
The 23-year-old pacer said he misses the “thrill and aura” associated with his long-time mentor Gambhir in the Kolkata Knight Riders’ dugout. Under Gambhir’s mentorship, Harshit had a breakthrough IPL 2024 season in which he snapped 19 scalps in KKR’s IPL-winning campaign and never looked back.
Notably, KKR mentor Gambhir joined the Indian national team as head coach and took Abhishek Nayar with him as well after IPL 2024. However, Nayar has joined KKR for the remaining IPL season after BCCI sacked him from assistant coach’s post with the Indian national team.
During the pre-match press conference, Harshit was asked whether KKR team misses Gambhir, and he said, “I won’t say that because the composition of our support staff is basically the same (from last year). (Abhishek) Nayar Bhai has also come back. Chandu Sir, (Dwayne) Bravo are all good. But yes, there is this thrill factor which I miss a little. I am not talking about anyone else.”
When prodded to elaborate on Gambhir, he said: “You also know that Gambhir has an aura, the way he comes and takes the team along. I was just talking about that.”
Harshit also mentioned that Nayar’s presence will make a huge difference when it comes to KKR’s strategies.
“There will be a lot of changes now that he (Abhishek Nayar) has come back. Because he is a very smart mind. He reads situations very well and he knows the Indian core of our (KKR) team very well. He has groomed them for many years. So we also get a lot of help now that he has come back. So it feels good,” he said.
KKR are in midst of a poor season with only six points and a seventh place in the league table and they will hope to revive their fortunes when they take on Delhi Capitals on Tuesday.
