Legendary India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar was critical in his assessment of the Indian cricket team after their heavy defeat to Australia in the final of the World Test Championship, that was held at The Oval in London.
Speaking to official broadcasters Star Sports, Gavaskar criticised India’s batting collectively, saying it was “in shambles”.
Chasing a mammoth target of 444, India collapsed to 234 all out after being 164/3 at stumps on Day 4. At that time, Virat Kohli was batting on 44 and Ajinkya Rahane on 20.
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However, a flurry of wickets early on in the first session on Day five meant that India crumbled under pressure to suffer a second consecutive loss at the WTC Final.
“The batting was shambles today. It was just ridiculous what we saw today. Especially the shot making. We saw some ordinary shots yesterday from Pujara, somebody you never expect to play that shot. Maybe somebody has gone into his head and said ‘strike rate, strike rate’. We didn’t even last a session with this batting line-up with eight wickets in hand. Come on!”, said Gavaskar.
Virat Kohli was eventually dismissed for 49. He went for the drive but eventually got a thick edge that went to the hands of Steve Smith at second slip. Gavaskar termed Kohli’s shot as a ‘bad shot’.
“It was a bad shot. You should ask Kohli what shot he played. He talks so much about how to win a match you need a long innings. How are you going to do that if you play a ball so far outside the offstump?”, questioned Gavaskar.
Sanjay Manjrekar questioned the Indian batters’ eagerness to get onto the front foot while facing short of length deliveries.
“One technical observation I have of most Indian batters, is the keenness to get onto the front foot, to even short of length balls. These are balls Steve Smith, Kane Williamson & Joe Root play back to,” he tweeted.
During an interaction with head coach Rahul Dravid after the match, Sourav Ganguly was quick to note that it was pretty ordinary batting from the Indians.
Dravid, in reply, admitted that his batters were not upto standards. “They (Batters) will agree this was not up to their standards,” said Dravid.
“But these are the same batters who have won two Test series in Australia, and have won Test matches in England,” he added.
“Some of the wickets in this Test championship cycle have been quite challenging, but this was a good wicket. So the averages have fallen, but we admit that if we back our bowlers with runs they will win Tests for us,” continued the 50-year-old.
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