Calcutta/New Delhi: Australian speedster Brett Lee is impressed with the leadership skills of his IPL-winning side Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Gautam Gambhir and praised him for the way he lived up to the challenge of captaining a side with players from different countries.
Lee praised Gambhir for his fighting qualities and also for his ability to make the dressing room light with banters.
“I am impressed. He is a very structured player, someone who likes to take on the opposition. Off the field, he likes to have a joke with his teammates. More importantly, I think he is respected for his fairness,” Lee said.
“It can be a challenge to lead men from different countries, but Gambhir has acquitted himself well,” he said.
Lee feels that the yorker remained the most lethal weapon for a bowler in the death overs of Twenty20 cricket.
“I think it’s pretty hard to get past a yorker in the death overs. If you can hit the base of a stump, you can trouble even the best. With a perfect yorker, you are 90 per cent assured that you can win the battle. With batsmen getting creative with their strokeplay, I think a yorker is the best,” said Lee.
Asked what he likes most about KKR, Lee said, “I think the fans are fanatics. They enjoy cricket, they appreciate a good contest. Like when Pune Warriors played in Calcutta, they were on their feet cheering Sourav Ganguly. When he took a catch, it really blew the roof off at the Eden Gardens.”
Lee was also upbeat about Mewsic, his charitable foundation in India, and said he was happy to give back to the country which had given him so much love.
[In an interview with The Telegraph on May 11, Lee had said passionately: “We’re working with NGOs in Mumbai, in New Delhi... In other places as well... Calcutta is definitely on the radar... In fact, I’d like hundreds of Mewsic centres, not just a handful... A few days ago, we opened one in New Delhi for those affected by autism... Last year, the first centre, in Mumbai, was for slum children... My aim is to change as many lives as I can.”]
“It’s an attempt to raise smiles on the faces of the children who are deprived.,” Lee said.
