Gautam Gambhir confident about Mitchell Starc performing well and doing justice to his price tag

 
As Mitchell Starc prepares for the Ind T20 League after steering clear of the tournament for eight long seasons, he will have to shoulder a huge responsibility on return, being the bowling spearhead of Kolkata. 

The Aussie pacer is the most expensive buy in the league as Kolkata bought him for a whopping INR 24.75 crore during the bidding war in Dubai last December and so he also has to justify his price tag.  

However, Kolkata mentor Gautam Gambhir believes that regardless how much Kolkata have had to pay for Starc, that will not put the quickie under any sort of pressure in the forthcoming edition of the T20 league. 

The former Kolkata skipper reckons the speedster is the “X Factor” for the two time champions and believes he will have a considerable impact on the tournament, just as he has had on international cricket. 

“I had already said on the auction table that he (Starc) is an X-factor and I’m sure he’s going to deliver. And there’s no such pressure of a price tag.

“I hope that what he has done in international cricket, he can do the same for Kolkata,” Gambhir said on Thursday evening at the Calcutta airport upon his arrival. 

The speedster has picked 34 wickets in the 27 games at an economy rate of 7.17. He has only featured in the competition’s 2014 (14 games) and 2015 (13 games) editions. The men in purple and golden had bought him at the 2018 auction as well, but the Australian international was ruled out because of a stress fracture in his right leg. 

With only a week left for the start of the 17th season of Ind T20 League, the Rinku Singhs will be rolling up their sleeves from Friday when they commence with their camp at Eden Gardens. Kolkata will kickstart their Ind T20 League 2024 campaign on March 23 against Hyderabad at the Eden. 

Gambhir is quite optimistic of Kolkata turning things around. “Kolkata is not a franchise, it’s an emotion for me,” the ex skipper, under whose captaincy the side won the trophy twice (in 2012 and 2014), said amidst “GG…GG…”chants by nearly a hundred fans that had gathered at the airport. 

“I hope I live up to the expectation, and I’m sure we’ll try and make Calcutta proud and that’s what we are going to do.