With a huge international season coming up after the Indian Premier League, Sehwag and Gambhir?s form is the biggest plus for India going forward

After playing the innings of his life on the night of April 2, 2011, at the Wankhede, Gautam Gambhir had, rather surprisingly, disappeared from the radar for a while. Courting controversy for playing with a shoulder injury for his IPL team, the Kolkata Knight Riders, in IPL season IV, Gambhir just couldn?t replicate the same form in India?s tour of England last summer. This cost the team dear and Gambhir eventually had to leave the tour midway to get himself treated for a mild concussion. The slump continued in Australia and yet again this had a disastrous impact on the Indian team.

The fact that Sehwag and Gambhir hardly ever put together a partnership in the entire tour was one of the primary reasons for India?s 0-4 mauling at the hands of Michael Clarke?s resurgent Australians. Ignored for the vice-captaincy on the eve of the Asia Cup, which went to Virat Kohli, Gautam Gambhir?s career was progressively going downhill before the start of IPL season V. Fortunately for India, the slide has finally been arrested and the southpaw is back to his best, in fact, has surpassed himself in this season of the IPL.

Gambhir?s personal form and his body language have been central to the Kolkata Knight Riders making the play-offs for the second consecutive season. His intensity has been terrific to see, best evident when he literally jumped on Jacques Kallis after he had dismissed Kieron Pollard at the Wankhede on the way to scripting a fantastic victory for the Knights on May 16.

Again, he celebrated McCullum?s catch of Rohit Sharma with real zest, intensity that has surely rubbed off on his team. While KKR continue to depend rather heavily on Gambhir at the top of the order and the middle order is in real bad shape, that they still have a chance in this competition is largely because of Gambhir.

Gambhir, unlike Sehwag, has always been an accumulator of runs at the top of the order. We don?t quite associate blistering starts with him and expect him to play the anchor’s role for his team. This IPL, however, has been different. He has completely overshadowed the explosive Brendon McCullum and has one of the best strike rates of the competition so far. His ability to find gaps, play the ball over the infield and maintain a steady run rate in the first six overs has been a real revelation. In fact, it is only after Gambhir has been dismissed that KKR has stumbled and stuttered. This happened in the grudge match against Pune at the Eden Gardens and was once again the case against Chennai early last week in Kolkata.

In both cases Gambhir had raced away to personal half centuries and his team?s run rate was hovering around the 9-10 run mark around the 11-12th over. Soon after he was dismissed the rate fell drastically with the completely out of form Yusuf Pathan or the struggling Manoj Tiwari unable to sustain the momentum. While the find of the IPL, Sunil Narine, ensured that KKR won against Pune, he wasn?t able to stop Dhoni?s Chennai from scripting a heroic last ball win.

As the tournament enters its final stretch and it is time for the play-offs, all of Kolkata would be hoping that their adopted superhero in Gautam Gambhir continues his resurgence. Team owner Shahrukh Khan has already credited Gambhir with having heralded the turnaround after a disastrous first three seasons and it is now to be seen if he is able to take KKR the full distance this time round. In the process he has made a statement to the national selectors, both as a player and as a captain.

With Dhoni having a rather mediocre tournament, Sehwag and Gambhir have yet again staked claims to India captaincy as a result of this tournament. Kohli has years ahead of him and is expected to continue to serve as deputy to whoever is handed the charge of team India for the next couple of years.

With a huge international season coming up, Sehwag and Gambhir?s form is the biggest plus for India going forward. India?s ascendancy to the pole position in Test cricket owed much to the starts these two had given us and if their form is anything to go by, they can do so yet again during the England series in October-November. And at the T-20 world cup in Sri Lanka in September, there?s little doubt that India will depend on these two to amend the disasters suffered in England in 2009 and the Caribbean in 2010 in the second and third editions of the competition.

The writer is a sport historian