Gautam Gambhir delivered a very powerful line during the press conference while addressing the media after India demolished NZ in the T20 WC Final at Ahmedabad.

Speaking to the media, Gambhir opined that the “country should stop celebrating personal milestones.” He cited Sanju Samson’s performance in this WC and said that if Sanju had thought of completing 100, the Indian Team wouldn’t have scored runs like 250 in recent T20 matches.

“Milestones don’t matter, it’s the trophies that matter. For too long in Indian cricket, we have spoken about milestones and I hope that till I am here we don’t talk about milestones. You can see it very easily in the last three games what Sanju did — 97 not out, 89, 88. Imagine if he had been playing for a milestone, we wouldn’t have got 250. So I think this is on you guys as well. Stop celebrating milestones. Celebrate trophies.”
— Gautam Gambhir during the Press Conference after India won the T20 WC 2026

During his stint as a commentator, Gautam Gambhir had often criticised broadcasters for giving disproportionate limelight to a few star players in order to hype up a series.

He also repeatedly expressed disappointment over how certain moments in Indian cricket were promoted as the achievement of a single individual, particularly the narrative that projected the World Cup victory as the accomplishment of just one man rather than a collective team effort.

While he never took a name, his criticism back then was alleged to be often directed at players like Kohli and Dhoni.

Fearless Selfless Approach: The Mantra of the Indian Team

Gambhir had opined that earlier, there had been an environment in the dressing room where players were more focused on achieving milestones rather than adopting a fearless and selfless for the benefit of the team.

It was after the debacle of the 2022 WC semi-final against England that India decided to adopt a fearless and offensive approach in their batting. Rohit Sharma showed the way with his selfless batting under the coaching of Rahul Dravid in the 2024 T20 WC, and since then, Team India has gone really hard when it comes to scoring runs without the fearing getting out.

Gambhir now has two ICC trophies under his portfolio as the coach of a national team. He enjoys a decorated career where he was a part of the Indian world cup winning team on two occasions, and also took KKR to two IPL titles under his captaincy.