Gautam Gambhir says Shah Rukh Khan hasn’t spoken ’70 seconds of cricket’ with him in 7 years: ‘He says I don’t like anyone telling me how to act…’

Gautam Gambhir praised Shah Rukh Khan for not meddling in the functioning of Kolkata Knight Riders, and said that in the seven years that he's been associated with the team, they've discussed cricket just once.

Shah Rukh Khan talks about what it means to have a cricket team in the IPL

Shah Rukh Khan is one of the co-owners of the Kolkata Knight Riders IPL team. (Photo: Kolkata Knight Riders/Instagram)

After the recent viral video of Sanjiv Goenka, the owner of the Lucknow Super Giants Indian Premier League franchise, apparently lecturing player KL Rahul, there has been a heated debate on social media about the boundaries that corporate executives should maintain with athletes. In a recent interview, Kolkata Knight Riders mentor Gautam Gambhir said that team co-owner Shah Rukh Khan maintains a hands-off approach to managing the performance side of the business.

Shah Rukh is a fixture at nearly every KKR match, especially those that take place on the team’s home turf of Eden Gardens in West Bengal, but according to Gambhir, he doesn’t meddle in the team’s strategies. Appearing on cricketer Ravichandran Ashwin’s YouTube channel, Gambhir said that SRK is the ‘best owner’ that he has ever worked with. “In the seven years of me captaining, we had not spoken 70 seconds about cricket. He had never asked me a single question on cricket in those seven years. Can you imagine?” he said.

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Gambhir recalled an anecdote from 2011, which remains one of the few times that he spoke cricket with SRK. He said, “Since I have come, 20 days we haven’t spoken about cricket. We don’t talk about cricket. The first thing he told me in 2011 when I met him for the first time he said, ‘I don’t like anybody telling me how acting needs to be done. I am sure you will not like someone telling you how cricket needs to be played’. I said, ‘Absolutely’. And that was the only conversation I had with him. In the last 20 days, he has not asked me what team are we playing or what is the strategy.”

After Gambhir’s return this season, KKR bounced back after a dismal run last year. KKR has advanced to the play-off stage this year, after topping the group for the first time ever. They are scheduled to play Sunrisers Hyderabad on May 21. Shah Rukh, on the other hand, had the most successful year of his career in 2023, and is now reportedly planning his next film, titled King.

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