‘Gauti, what are you doing?’ – Aakash Chopra shares anecdote when Gambhir grabbed truck driver’s collar

Newly-appointed Team India head coach Gautam Gambhir is known for wearing his heart on his sleeves. Besides his accolades as a top-order batter, where he won two World Cups (T20 and ODI), Gambhir was also famous for his well-documented on-field altercations.

However, his former Delhi teammate and now a well-renowned commentator, Aakash Chopra, revealed an instance when Gambhir got into an altercation with a truck driver early into his career, leading to Gambhir climbing up the truck and grabbing his collar.

In a recent podcast with YouTuber Raj Shamani, Aakash recalled this one intriguing anecdote where Gambhir took matters into his own hands and went after a truck driver after he abused him.

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Starting by calling him passionate about what he does, Aakash soon jumped onto revealing what happened on the Delhi roads one day when Gambhir lost his cool.

"Passionate guy. Very hardworking when it comes to his craft. A bit serious but scored a lot of runs. He always wore his heart on the sleeve. Temperament-wise, he can be very short-fused. But everyone has a different character.

"Gautam is someone who once fought with a truck driver in Delhi. He got out of his car and climbed the truck to grab the collar of the driver because he made a wrong turn and was abusing. I was like, ‘Gauti, what are you doing?’ So that's made him Gautam," Chopra said.

When Virat and Gautam fought on field

The two best Indian batters since 2000, Gautam and Virat, belong to Delhi and, surprisingly, have a history of getting involved in verbal volleys on the ground.

While the first recorded instance came during the 2013 IPL edition, when Kohli (playing for RCB) and Gambhir (KKR’s captain) had a go at each other, only for others to interfere and separate them immediately, the second came most recently during the 2022 edition, when both got into a heated argument.

Although both have maintained peace with that since Gambhir recently replaced Rahul Dravid as India’s new head coach. He began his three-and-a-half-year stint with the away Sri Lanka series, where India won the T20Is but lost the ODIs for the first time since 1997.

Meanwhile, Gautam is overseeing the Indian Test squad, assembled in Chennai, the venue for the first Test against Bangladesh starting September 19. Kanpur will cap off the two-match Test series with the second Test beginning September 27.

Kohli and Gambhir were snapped having discussions in the training.

(With inputs from agencies)