Sunil Gavaskar warns India of underestimating Australia ahead of second T20I

Dixit Bhargav | 27/02/2019
Sunil Gavaskar warns India of underestimating Australia

Sunil Gavaskar warns India of underestimating Australia: The legendary cricketer wants India to not be complacent in second T20I.

Contrary to what the expectations were, Australia defeated India by three wickets in the first T20I of the ongoing Australia’s tour of India. After being restricted to 126-7 in their allotted quota of 20 overs, India did exceptionally well to take the match till the last ball.

While India experimented a bit with their batting order, the selected named not delivering created issues for the hosts. A plentiful of fans were also disappointed at how fast bowler Umesh Yadav couldn’t defend 14 runs in the last over.

Sunil Gavaskar, former India captain and the first batsman to cross the 10,000-run mark in Test cricket, opined that India might have underestimated the opposition in the first T20I at Visakhapatnam.

“The first thing that every team must realise especially in the ultra- short format of the game is never to underestimate any opponent. India may have just done that at Vizag as they went in with just three recognised batsmen with the likes of Pant, Dhoni, Karthik and Pandya to push the score along,” Gavaskar wrote in his column for The Times of India.

Other than India playing three wicket-keeper batsmen, Gavaskar also targeted the ploy of playing Lokesh Rahul ahead of Shikhar Dhawan and Pant not being able to stand tall on the expectations in the middle-order.

“They also went in with a new opening pair, dropping Dhawan and bringing Rahul to open the batting with Rohit Sharma. Rahul batted well, but was not able to carry on after a half-century and that too with almost half the overs remaining.

“That meant the new boy Pant and the other two keeperbatsmen had to bulk up the innings. That didn’t quite happen and so India ended with a below par score,” Gavaskar added.

Post Edited By: Dixit Bhargav
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About the author

Dixit Bhargav

Born and brought up in Pathankot, Dixit Bhargav is an engineering and sports management graduate who works as a Cricket Editor at The SportsRush. Having written more than 10,000 articles across more than five years at TSR, his first cricketing memory dates back to 2002 when former India captain Sourav Ganguly had waved his jersey at the historic Lord’s balcony. What followed for an 8-year-old was an instant adulation for both Ganguly and the sport. The optimist in him is waiting for the day when Punjab Kings will win their maiden Indian Premier League title. When not watching cricket, he is mostly found in a cinema hall watching a Punjabi movie.

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