IPL 2021: Only Regret I Have Is Not Pushing Suryakumar Yadav At No. 3, Says Gautam Gambhir

Former KKR skipper Gautam Gambhir said his only regret from his successful stint as captain of the Kolkata-based franchise is not using batsman Suryakumar Yadav at No. 3 position.

Gambhir also said that Yadav has gone on to become one of the mainstays for Mumbai Indian and India in the shortest format of the game. SKY has scored 400-plus in his last three seasons for MI.

"The only regret I have is not pushing Suryakumar Yadav at No. 3. There were players like Manish Pandey and Yusuf Pathan, and so we had to always use him as a finisher. A lot of players go on from one franchise to another. From KKR's point of view, this has to be KKR's biggest loss, letting go of Suryakumar Yadav," Gambhir told Star Sports on Thursday.

"He is someone whom we groomed for four years and then let him go and now he is at the peak of his career. Because we couldn't give him that position (NO. 3), he was not able to get those 400-500 runs in a season, batting at No. 7."

Yadav received the IPL contract from Mumbai for the 2012 season. He played just one match in the season and was dismissed without scoring. He was bought by Kolkata in the 2014 IPL auction. He made headlines in IPL 2015 when he hit a match-winning, 20-ball 46 with five sixes, against Mumbai at Eden Gardens.

He joined Mumbai in 2018 after spending four seasons with KKR. "Someone's loss is someone else's massive gain. And that is exactly what happened with Mumbai Indians. KKR let go of him and now he has become a mainstay of MI's batting line-up," Gambhir added.