Absent from international cricket for 4 years, unsold in IPL, out-of-favour pacer Navdeep Saini slams head coach Gautam Gambhir's critics

A career marred by injuries, out-of-favour pacer Navdeep Saini is far from his international comeback. Currently playing in Delhi Premier League (DPL) 2025 for East Delhi Riders, Saini is hopeful of comeback to the Indian Premier League (IPL) and international cricket. Saini also slammed those who criticised India head coach Gautam Gambhir who played a pivotal role in the 32-year-old pacer’s career.

Gambhir helped Saini get an entry into the Delhi Ranji team. The pacer believes that Gambhir needed time to help the new players gel well on the England tour, especially with senior players -- Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin -- retiring.

"Even when I played under him in domestic cricket, his captaincy was different. And now, as a coach, even though some people doubted whether he would succeed - especially after losing one or two matches - the results are clear for everyone to see. When a new player enters the team, integrating them and helping them gel with the squad is very important. Even if one match goes off, that's part of the process. But under his coaching, you can see the kind of results we've achieved - they speak for themselves," Navdeep told India Today.

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Saini on his performances in DPL 2025

Wicketless in first two games, Saini has made a good comeback. He feels he has got back his rhythm and the results have started to show.

"Yes, in the beginning - especially since I hadn't played much competitive cricket for a while - the start wasn't great. One or two matches went okay, not exactly bad, but also not up to my own expectations. From my point of view, I felt I needed to do better. So after the first couple of matches, I started paying more attention - analyzing what was going on in the game and how I could improve. Whatever errors there were, I corrected them. After that, the results speak for themselves - the bowling has been good, and everything's going better now," the Delhi pacer said.

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Saini’s IPL numbers

Saini's last IPL appearance was for Rajasthan Royals (RR) in 2023 edition. He wasn't picked by any of the franchises in the mega auction. He made his IPL debut for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in the 2019 edition. So far, he has played 32 IPL games and taken 23 wickets at an average of 42.34.