Gavaskar on India’s loss in the 4th Test: Former India captain was vocal about India’s defeat in the fourth Test at Southampton.
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Sunil Gavaskar, former India captain and the highest run-scorer for India as an opener in Test matches, found faults in the current Indian squad including its captain Virat Kohli as the team has lost another series outside the sub-continent.
Been included in the list of former cricketers who have lashed out at the current team for their below-par performance, Gavaskar was harsh in his words stating that the same problems (for the loss) were visible during the tour of South Africa as well.
In an interview with India Today, Gavaskar said that the fans back home are bound to get disappointed with the captain and the team because of the results that they have obtained outside of Asia in Test matches. The captaincy shift from MS Dhoni to Kohli was expected to reap in changes in results but that hasn’t been the case.
“When Virat took over captaincy, everybody thought that it will be completely different because you had MSD (Dhoni) who was cool, calm and collected and here was somebody who was very passionate. Not that being calm, cool and collected means that you are not passionate about winning, but here was a person who had a completely different approach and outlook to the game. Everybody would be disappointed looking at the result because when Virat took over as captain, it seemed like the team would head into a new direction under him. The team looked hungry to win and seemed more hopeful of doing well under Kohli.
“Everyone thought that he will bring in a lot more energy into the team. So quite naturally, there will be questions asked about his captaincy. Everybody knew that the three toughest series for India was going to be in South Africa, England and the forthcoming Australia tour. Before this all that India played were more like practice tours in Sri Lanka and West Indies,” Gavaskar was quoted.
Having criticized Kohli’s captaincy, Gavaskar also praised his skills as a batsman, saying that he alone can’t take India to victory every time. “If only the other batsmen could have played like him. If any other batsman could have scored over 400-500 runs then India wouldn’t have lost Test series in South Africa and in England.
“This is like a learning curve for Kohli at the moment. Fans are bound to be disappointed as the expectations were quite high with this team. Looking at how they performed before this at home, in West Indies and in Sri Lanka, everybody were hoping to see history being made on foreign soil”, he added.
As had he done during the post-match show on television, Gavaskar also questioned India’s ploy of playing with five specialist batsman. “When you go in with five batsmen then you are bound to be in such a situation where you rely so much only on one player, Virat Kohli to get you the big hundreds. He can’t do it every time, he’s human”, he further added.
