Sunil Gavaskar warns India of underestimating Australia ahead of second T20I

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.