Seniors have not really made the contribution that they should have: Gavaskar

Sunil Gavaskar on Monday (December 30, 2024) lashed out at senior players such as Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli for letting the team down and blamed the Indian top-order for losing the Boxing Day Test against Australia in Melbourne. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

The legendary Sunil Gavaskar on Monday (December 30, 2024) lashed out at senior players such as Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli for letting the team down and blamed the Indian top-order for losing the Boxing Day Test against Australia in Melbourne.

Set a target of 340 on the final day of the fourth Test, the Indian batters, except Yashasvi Jaiswal (84), faltered yet again to lose the match by 184 runs and trail 1-2 in the five-match series.

“It all depends on the selectors. The contributions that were expected have not come. It is the top-order which has to contribute, if the top-order is not contributing, why blame the lower-order.”

“The seniors have not really made the contribution that they should have, all that they had to do was bat out today and live to fight another day in Sydney,” Gavaskar told India Today.

“…it’s just that the top-order didn’t contribute and that is the reason India found itself in this position.”

While Gavaskar praised Jaiswal for his gritty knock, the batting great once again was not impressed by Rishabh Pant’s shot selection, which opened the floodgates for Australia.

Joining hands at 33 for 3, Jaiswal and Pant looked to have settled down, taking India to 121 in the post-lunch session, before a rash shot from Pant set the team back.

“Yes, absolutely around tea time when Rishabh Pant and Yashasvi Jaiswal had batted through the post-lunch session, it certainly looked India could achieve a draw because it was a matter of batting for another hour really without losing a wicket, and Australia would have then given up,” Gavaskar said.

“The whole idea was try and take into the mandatory overs and if around the mandatory overs India had just lost maybe four wickets then Australia, after a couple off overs, would have asked to shake hands but that didn’t happen.”

As Pant got a long hop from Travis Head after a 103-ball vigil, during which he shared 84 runs for the fourth wicket with Jaiswal, he hit it straight to Mitchell Marsh at in the deep in search of a six.

“…the issue is you know there is this shot called sixer in cricket and which is like a drug. Once you hit a couple of sixes, then you think that’s a real a high because once you hit the ball cleanly of the middle of the bat and it goes into the stands, there is no better feeling for a batter. Sixer is a different feeling and it’s a drug, it gets into your system,” Gavaskar said.

“The difference between a boundary and a six is just two runs but the risk percentage is 100 per cent. Boundary is hit along the ground no risk at all, a six is attempted with the ball up in the air and if you don’t time it, if it hits the toe of your bat, it can go up and you can be out caught.”

“At that particular point of time there was no need to go for a six, it was not going to win us the match. There was a long on there, there was a deep square leg there, so if a pull shot along the ground would have been attempted it would have got you four runs, and that is how it opened the door for Australia.”

Gavaskar also criticised the TV umpire for ignoring technology and giving Jaiswal out caught-behind controversially off the bowling of Pat Cummins.

“That is not how it should be because in Perth you had a dismissal of KL Rahul where you didn’t go by the visual evidence, you went by technology. You can’t be saying technology one day and visual evidence the next day.”

“Visual evidence, if you ask me, was not so much to make a difference for you to overturn,” the former India captain said.

“I always believed that it has got to be overwhelming evidence to overturn an umpire’s call in the middle. I don’t think there was overwhelming evidence because the fact of the matter is there is an element of optical illusion with the ball.”

“The ball sometimes moves a little bit later after it has gone past the bat, it looks as if it’s an edge and then you realise it’s not an edge, so that is the reason why you have a Snickometer, if you have it go by it. I just failed to understand why the TV umpire gave that out.”

Gavaskar had word of advice for Kohli, who continues to struggle with deliveries outside the off-stump.

“The foot is not going to the pitch of the ball, the foot is going straight down the pitch, not towards the ball. If the foot goes more towards the ball, you have more chances of hitting the ball from the middle.”

“Because the foot is not moving you end up reaching for the ball and that is what has been happening,” he observed.

The fifth and final Test of the series will be played in Sydney from January 3.