"People jump on Gautam Gambhir for no reason" - Former spinner lashes out at critics following IND vs SA 2025 ODIs

Former India spinner Harbhajan Singh has slammed the critics of head coach Gautam Gambhir. His comments came after India’s emphatic nine-wicket win in the third and final ODI against South Africa, which sealed the series 2-1 on Saturday, December 6, in Visakhapatnam.

Following the game, during a discussion on his YouTube channel, Harbhajan said that although some of Gambhir’s decisions are different from others, he is happy that the team won the ODI series. He added that Gambhir has always carried himself as a proud Indian and is full of passion, and that people criticize him for no reason, saying:

“People just jump on Gautam Gambhir for no reason. He is a proven man, he has won matches on his own, someone who knows what should be done. It is a good thing. Some of his decisions are very different from others, and they should be different. It is necessary. And I am so happy that the team won. Yes, we lost the Test series, but we will learn, we will come back, we will do better. People have created a perception that he gets angry a lot. Anger comes only to someone who is genuine.”

“Let me tell you one thing: they are paying the price for keeping their neck straight. Paying the price for keeping their neck straight, correct. Shameless people can walk even while looking down. But he is not that. Gautam Gambhir is not shameless. That is his heart. The man is full of emotion. And he has always represented himself as a proud Indian whenever he played for the country. So let me say this in Punjabi: (Gardan seedhi rakhda mul utaar rahe hain. Besharma neevi paake bhi sir jaata) keeping your neck straight has a price, but a shameless person walks easily even with their head down,” he added.

Gautam Gambhir will next be in the spotlight when India take on South Africa in the five-match T20I series starting December 9 in Cuttack.

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“People wait for the moment they don’t perform” - Harbhajan Singh slams detractors of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli

In the same video, Harbhajan Singh praised Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli for their performance against South Africa and also pointed out that people wait for the veteran duo to fail so they can criticize them. He said:

“Now what do they have to do so that people don’t question them? Brother, look at their entire 15-year career, they have never really disappointed. I don’t know, here it has become a sort of tradition that if someone is a big name, people just keep doing this, keep attacking them, keep criticizing. People wait for the moment they don’t perform and then they jump on them. Anyway, forget that. People will always say something, it is people’s job to talk.”

Kohli was named Player of the Series for scoring 302 runs in three innings, including two centuries and a fifty, while Rohit contributed 146 runs in the same number of innings, registering two fifties.