Gambhir recalled his working partnership with Iyer during KKR's title-winning IPL 2024 campaign.
India head coach Gautam Gambhir highly praised T20I skipper Shreyas Iyer's selfless trait, calling it the most critical quality of any good leader.
Gambhir noted that while a player can be disciplined, hardworking, fit, or the No. 1 batter, all those attributes mean nothing without selflessness.
Gambhir recalled their highly successful stint during Kolkata Knight Riders’ (KKR) title-winning IPL 2024 campaign, where he served as mentor and Iyer was the captain.
The coach highlighted that the best thing he liked about Iyer was his willingness to demote himself or sacrifice his preferred No. 4 batting position whenever the team requirement demanded it.
"Look, my first experience with Shreyas was when I went to KKR in 2024. Obviously, he was captaining the side, and the best thing I liked about Shreyas was that he was willing, at times, to leave his position as well at No. 4," Gambhir told JioStar ahead of the start of India's home season, comprising three ODIs and five T20Is against the West Indies.
"He was so flexible that he was okay if someone went ahead of him. It happens very rarely that a captain, who is probably your main batter as well, sacrifices his position for the team's cause, whether for someone else's impact or from a left-hand-right-hand combination point of view. He is willing to sacrifice his position.
"That is when I realised that the first and foremost quality of a good leader, and I'm not going to talk about captaincy, is how selfless you are. Shreyas has that quality. That probably was the biggest tick that Shreyas can carry for the rest of his journey as a captain.
"Because you can be hardworking, you can be disciplined, you can be fit, you can be the No. 1 batter. But if you are not selfless, then all those other things count for nothing. Shreyas has all those qualities, and on top of that, he has that selflessness as well," he added.
Amid recent short-term stumbles—including a difficult start to Shreyas Iyer's tenure as full-time T20I captain where the team suffered series losses to Ireland and England—Gambhir emphasized that a few defeats do not define a captain. He strongly advocated for continuity and stability rather than reactive changes in the squad.
"For two years, imagine, we won the World Cup. Which team in the history of sport has gone undefeated from one World Cup to the next and gone on to win the World Cup?
"It didn't take these guys 17 years to win a second World Cup. It took them only 17 months to win a third World Cup. Suddenly, one bad series or three bad games here and there do not make them bad players or make us a bad side. So it was very important for us to have that continuity," Gambhir remarked.