Gautam Gambhir top-scored in two World Cup final wins, then coached India
Gautam Gambhir hit 75 off 54 balls in the 2007 World Twenty20 final and 97 off 122 in the 2011 World Cup final, both India victories. The left-handed opener later became India's head coach, and in his first major tournament in charge the team won again.
Born in New Delhi on 14 October 1981, he was taken in by his maternal grandparents eighteen days after birth and raised by them. He started playing at ten, counted his maternal uncle as his mentor and would ring him before big matches, and in 2000 joined the first intake of India's National Cricket Academy in Bangalore. He never went to university.
His one-day debut came against Bangladesh in 2003 and his first Test a year later against Australia. At his peak he was formidable: he remains the only Indian to score hundreds in five Tests in a row and the only Indian batsman to pass 300 runs in four straight Test series. In 2009 he topped the ICC Test batting rankings and was named its Test Player of the Year. He also captained India in six one-day internationals across 2010 and 2011, and won all six.
The Indian Premier League made him rich. Kolkata Knight Riders paid $2.4 million for him at the 2011 auction, then a record, and under his captaincy won their first title in 2012 by beating Chennai in Chennai, adding another in 2014. He is still the franchise's all-time top run-scorer with 3375. After retiring in December 2018 he returned to Kolkata as mentor, and they won the title again in 2024.
India appointed him head coach in July 2024 on a deal running to the 2027 World Cup. His teams won the 2025 Champions Trophy, the 2025 Asia Cup and the 2026 T20 World Cup, playing a more aggressive limited-overs style that has drawn praise and criticism in roughly equal measure.
Source: Gautam Gambhir
