IPL 2017: When current Delhi skipper and his predecessor collided at the Kotla

NEW DELHI: It was the first ball of the 19th over. Rishabh Pant miscued a full and wide delivery from Nathan Coulter-Nile to Gautam Gambhir at point - a tame and regulation dismissal as T20 cricket goes. Gambhir's outburst, however, told a different story. He flung the ball and broke out in a war-cry as Pant walked off as nonchalantly as his hitting had been.
Gambhir made it obvious he wasn't amused by the damage the hard-hitting wicketkeeper had caused a couple of overs earlier.The two have played one full season with each other for Delhi in the domestic season. But the season ended with the 19-year-old replacing Gambhir as the captain of the team with the selectors believing that he was suddenly the ideal choice to replace the 35-year-old campaigner.
The relationship is not far off from being awkward and mostly to do with the way the selectors changed the captaincy. Off the fifth ball of the same over, Gambhir spilled the most regulation of catches at cover. The event had got to him. "He (Gambhir) knows what he wants. He is very assertive on the ground. He walks around as if he is very blusterous but he is very calm and in control," Nathan Coulter-Nile talked about his captain in reference to his outburst.
"Off the field he is very soft-spoken. He knows his game really well. I haven't had too many run-ins with him. He is been pretty good to me," the KKR bowler continued.
Gambhir has always been very competitive on the field. Even in the last IPL, when his batsmen managed to pull off a heist against Virat Kohli's Royal Challengers Bangalore, he kicked a chair in the dugout in jubilation.
On Monday, Pant may have managed to get under Gambhir's skin when he took Umesh Yadav, India's star fast bowler of the season, to the cleaners. The punches of his toes into the crowd had the onlookers rubbing their eyes and Yadav shaking his head in disbelief. Twenty six runs in the 17th over threatened to shut KKR out of the game.
"Umesh had his plans but sometimes in T20 cricket the batsman gets away. I was thinking of bowling into the pitch and slowing it out down while taking it wide to him. He likes to swing to the leg side. So I just wanted to keep him guessing," Coulter-Nile, adjudged man-of-match for his splendid death bowling, let out a plan against Pant for others to follow.