Gautam Gambhir scored a ton in his farewell match. (Source: PTI)Gautam Gambhir walked into the sunset by scoring a memorable hundred in his farewell Ranji match against Andhra Pradesh on Saturday at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium in New Delhi. Playing his last competitive match of a glittering career, Gambhir brought up his 43rd first-class hundred with a quick double of Ayyappa Bandaru. The celebration was short as the southpaw acknowledged a round of applause from the sparsely populated crowd at Kotla and quickly got his focus back, intent on making it count one last time.
However, the euphoria did not last long as the 37-year old was caught behind off Shoaib Khan for 112 (185 balls).
After 15 years of international cricket for India, World Cup winner Gautam Gambhir announced his retirement from all formats of cricket – in an emotional Facebook video on Tuesday. Gambhir retires after last playing for the country in 2016 against England in Rajkot. He scored 4154 runs in Test cricket from 58 matches, 5238 runs in ODIs and 932 in T20Is.
In first-class cricket, Gambhir accumulated 15,041 runs and a massive 10,077 runs in List A cricket. In IPL, he led Kolkata Knight Riders to two titles – in 2012 and 2014. His shining moment may be the 2011 World Cup where he scored 97 from 122 balls in the final against Sri Lanka to steer India to first title since 1983. He was also part of India’s World T20 winning squad in 2007.
