"IPL for me, a serious cricket. It's not about Bollywood," says Gautam Gambhir ahead of IPL 2024

Now only a few days are left for the IPL 2024 to start. All the teams have started preparations for the tournament starting from March 22. Before that, Kolkata Knight Riders mentor Gautam Gambhir has given a strict message to his players. He has appealed to his players to maintain discipline and behavior during the tournament.

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KKR has appointed Gambhir as the mentor of its team in IPL 2024 season. Before this, he was the mentor of Lucknow Super Giants for two years. Gambhir has also captained the Kolkata team before and made them champions in 2012 and 2014. Gambhir has said, "I made it very clear on Day 1 that IPL for me, a serious cricket. It's not about Bollywood, it's not about you, it's not about after party and stuff. It's about going out there and playing competitive cricket and that's the reason why I feel is the toughest league in the world because it is proper cricket,"

"It is probably closest to international cricket as compared to any other league and if you want to be known as a successful franchise, you should be able to deliver on the cricket field." The veteran batsman also pointed out the importance of the Indian Premier League at the global level.

Gambhir was present along with other members of KKR at the player auction for IPL 2024 season, where the franchise spent a record-breaking Rs 24.75 crore to sign Mitchell Starc.

Gambhir also talked about the Kolkata fanbase, who has supported the team during difficult times. He said, "I think there are very passionate fans. We need to be honest to them. We need to try and probably bring that happiness on their smiles because I've always believed I think the most loyal fans have been fans from Kolkata because they've gone through a lot in the first three years of the IPL,"

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KKR will start IPL 2024 campaign from March 23

Kolkata Knight Riders will play their first match of IPL 2024 starting from March 22 against Sunrisers Hyderabad at Eden-Gardens Stadium in Kolkata on March 23. Last season, both these teams could not qualify for the playoffs. In such a situation, now Shreyas Iyer's KKR and Pat Cummins' SRH will take the field with the aim of making a winning start to the tournament by winning the first match.