Sunil Gavaskar points out where out-of-form Indian batters missed the trick
Sunil Gavaskar points out where out-of-form Indian batters missed the trick
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Team India are back with a bang in the ongoing Test series against England, leveling the series at 1-1 with three matches to go courtesy a 106-run victory in Hyderabad after suffering a shock 28-run loss in Hyderabad. The morale-boosting win, however, doesn’t hide the fact that the home team has certain areas of concern that they will need to work on if they are to gain the series lead in Rajkot and eventually win the marquee five-match series.
Among them is the batting department, and though Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill did stand out with their knocks of 209 and 104 in the first and second innings respectively, only one other batter could cross 40 in the entire Test match. All-rounder Axar Patel gave Gill valuable support with a knock of 45 in the second innings, while Gill was the second-highest scorer in India’s first innings total of 396 with a score of 34.
Read | Five areas where India must improve to go 2-1 up against England in Rajkot
Indian batting legend Sunil Gavaskar, reacting to the home team’s performance in Vizag, offered a solution that will not only improve India’s batting performance in the crucial series against England but will also set in place a proper system to ensure Indian batters are in the right form and mindset to take on the rigours of Test cricket.
The former India captain urged the current cricketers to go back to domestic red-ball cricket, be it an India A game or the Ranji/Duleep Trophy, in order to improve their red-ball form, especially before a big-ticket series such as this.
“What the batters’ failure to get big runs also shows how important it is before a Test match series for both batters and bowlers to play some First-Class games and get themselves in the right frame of mind for the longer format of the game.
“The Ranji Trophy had started and it would have been perfect timing for the batters to get into the groove for the Test series by playing a couple of games,” former opener Gavaskar wrote in his column for Mid Day.
Read | How bad Indian spinners have been as compared to England spinners in first two Tests
Among the batters who had taken the Ranji route before featuring in the England Tests was middle-order batter Shreyas Iyer, who scored 48 for Mumbai in their home fixture against Andhra. Iyer, however, struggled for form in the Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam Tests, and has collected just 145 runs in his last four Test appearances that also includes the two-Test series in South Africa.
Reacting to his poor run in recent Tests, former India spinner Pragyan Ojha advised Iyer to vacate the No 4 slot, where he has batted in the ongoing series, for Virat Kohli should he return to action in the remainder of the series and go back to domestic cricket to regain his form.
