Gautam Gambhir turns 38: Here is his journey from Cricket to Politics

Former Indian cricketer and current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, Gautam Gambhir turned 38 on Monday. After announcing his retirement from International Cricket in December 2018, India's former star opener, enjoyed his fair part of success in politics as he got BJP's ticket to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections from East Delhi. The cricketer-turned-politician went on to win the elections after crushing strong opposition from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Indian National Congress (INC) in his constituency. 

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Gambhir's success as cricketer and politician

Gautam Gambhir made his international debut against Bangladesh in April 2003 and had a very cool start before storming off to score crucial 71 runs in the third match of the TVS cup and bag the Player of the Match Award as well. He soon registered his opening spot in the team after giving brilliant starts to the team across formats. His partnership with Virender Sehwag was a complete delight and also helped India get a permanent opening pair. Gambhir played a match-winning of 76 against arch-rivals Pakistan to help India win the inaugural ICC T20 World Cup in 2007. However, Gambhir is fondly remembered by cricket fans for memorable knock against Sri Lanka.

After India lost Sehwag and Master Blaster Tendulkar early in the innings, Gambhir steadied the ship and led the team to lift the cup with his 122-ball 97. Gambhir played 58 Tests scoring 4,154 runs, 147 ODIs with 5238 runs and 37 T20Is with 932 runs and also had a successful IPL stint as he led Kolkata Knight Riders to 2 IPL titles. After his jump into politics, Gambhir hit a six as he won his first-ever election from the East Delhi constituency by defeating Congress' Arvinder Singh Lovely by a margin of 3.91 lakh votes.

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Wishes pour in for Gambhir

Former teammates including Suresh Raina, Irrfan Pathan, Cheteshwar Pujara and RP Singh took to Twitter to wish the former Indian opener on his birthday. BCCI also wished Gambhir by sharing a throwback video of his memorable innings against Sri Lanka which made him India's World Cup hero. International Cricket Council (ICC) wished Gambhir on Twitter by stating his record of being one of the only four players to have scored centuries in five consecutive Tests.

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