IND Vs AUS, WTC Final 2023: Sunil Gavaskar Questions Indian Players Poor Shot Selection Says, “Batting was in a shambles, especially the shot-making”
New Delhi: After India lost to Australia in the World Test Championship (WTC) Final at The Oval on Sunday, legendary Indian batter Sunil Gavaskar criticised the Indian players, claiming their batting was in disarray, particularly in terms of shot selection.
With Travis Head and Steve Smith scoring 163 and 121 runs, respectively, after being given the opportunity to bat first, Australia posted 469 and defeated India for 296 to win the match by a score of 173 runs.
Australia defeated India by bowling them out for 234 to win by 209 runs before noon on day five and win their first-ever WTC championship after declaring their second innings at 270/8 to set an unlikely 444-run chase for India.
Gavaskar while talking to Star Sports after the match said, “In the first innings as well in the second innings. When Australia scored 469. The kind of batting line-up we often boast of, we should have got much closer to that. We gave Australia a big lead. It’s never easy to come back from there.” Gavaskar said.
“The batting was a shambles today. It was just ridiculous what we saw today. Especially the shot-making. We saw some ordinary shots yesterday from Pujara, somebody you never expect to play that shot. Maybe somebody has gone into his head and said ‘strike rate, strike rate’. You have not even lasted a session. 8 wickets have not lasted a session? C’mon.”
Kohli couldn’t resist pursuing a full and wide ball that Boland tempted him to chase. Steve Smith at the second slip caught the thick edge of the huge drive from Kohli with both hands after diving to his right. Gavaskar slammed Kohli for picking the wrong shot, which led to India’s demise.
He said “It was a bad shot. You should ask Kohli what shot he played. He talks so much about how to win a match, you need a long innings. How are you going to do that if you play a ball so far outside the off-stump?”
“It was a pretty ordinary shot outside the off stump. He was leaving till then. Maybe he was conscious that he needed one run to reach his half-century. It happens when you are nearing a milestone. It happened to Jadeja.”
“He played a delivery he shouldn’t have when he was on 48. Happened to Ajinkya Rahane who was on 46. He hadn’t played that shot all this while. Suddenly why do you play that shot? Because you are aware of that landmark,” he added.
Gavaskar had earlier said during his commentary stint on Day Five,
“I do believe that batters when they know they are near a landmark tend to try and do something to get to that landmark so we saw that in the first innings with Jadeja. He was batting so well on 48 and he pushed his bat out when he thought he could run the ball down he was caught in the slips if he was not on 48 he might not even played that ball he might have left it.” He added.
“And we saw Kohli chase a delivery outside the off-stump He showed so much discipline then he thought ‘oh! 1 run can get to another half-century’. Landmarks, milestones you chose the wrong balls to play the wrong shots because you want to get there. It happens so often.” Sunil Gavaskar added.
Gavaskar feels that with India set to start the 2023-25 WTC cycle with two matches against West Indies in July, the final loss to Australia could be forgotten quickly.
“We are now going to play two matches against West Indies, who are not the best team in the world.” The Indian legend said.
“We have hammered them 2-0 or 3-0 and when you be in the final two years down the road, you could be playing Australia again (in the final) and make the same mistakes, then how you are expected to win the trophy?” Sunil Gavaskar concluded.