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.

India’s Shubman Gill walks off the field after losing his wicket during play on day three of the third cricket test between India and Australia at the Gabba in Brisbane, Australia
| Photo Credit: AP

Former cricketer Ricky Ponting opened up on India batter Shubman Gill’s poor form overseas and said that the 25-year-old needs to back himself a bit more to get results.

In 12 Tests this year, Gill has scored 866 runs in 21 innings at an average of 45.52, with three centuries and three fifties each. In the last Gabba Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT), the 25-year-old continued with his poor form and scored just one run from three balls in the first inning.

In 12 Tests away from home, Gill has scored 616 runs in 22 innings at an average of 30.80, with one century and two fifties. His best score is 110. However, in 10 Tests in SENA countries, he has scored just 481 runs in 19 innings at a sub-par average of 26.72, with two fifties that came during his debut Test tour in Australia, including the iconic knock of 91 at Brisbane which helped India win the series. Since that knock, in the next 13 innings, he has failed to score even a fifty.

Meanwhile, the youngster has a fine home record, with 1,177 runs in 17 matches and 31 innings at an average of 42.03, with four centuries and five fifties and best score of 128.

The fourth Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test in Melbourne will begin on Boxing Day, with India chasing a win to keep alive their hopes of qualifying for the ICC World Test Championship Final.

Speaking in the latest episode of The ICC Review, Ponting said that he loves watching Gill play.

“I love watching him play. When you’re watching him bat and bat well, he looks as good as anyone in world cricket. But the numbers don’t really stack up, do they, away from home?” Ponting was quoted by ICC as saying.

The former Aussie skipper added the Indian youngster needs to back his defensive technique in Australia.

“If anything, I think he needs to back himself a little bit more, needs to back his defensive technique a little bit more here in Australia and still find a way to be able to score and score quickly,” he added.

Ponting added that the 25-year-old is only thinking about scoring runs and not really about getting out.

“I’m sure when he’s at home or when he’s generally scored runs anywhere around the world, he scores them in a nice, attacking mode and almost to the point where he’s not really thinking about getting out – he’s only thinking about scoring runs. If he goes in with that mindset and that attitude, then things could change here in Melbourne for him,” Ponting further added.

India Squad: Rohit Sharma (C), Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (wicket-keeper), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar.

Australia Squad: Pat Cummins (C), Sean Abbott, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Travis Head (VC), Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Sam Konstas, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Jhye Richardson, Steve Smith (VC), Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster. (ANI)