Sunil Gavaskar, legendary former India captain, has reacted sharply at senior players 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 340 runs to chase, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli got out for single-digit scores, while KL Rahul couldn’t open his account, leaving India 31/3. That got to 121/3 at tea thanks to Rishabh Pant and Yashasvi Jaiswal.
However, after tea, India lost their last 7 wickets for 35 runs with Jaiswal top-scoring with 84 as they were bowled out 155 and lost the game by 184 runs. When asked what the future holds for Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma in 2025, Gavaskar gave a detailed answer.
"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. "...it's just that the top-order didn't contribute and that is the reason India found itself in this position," Gavaskar told India Today.
While Gavaskar praised Jaiswal's gutsy knock, he was unimpressed with Rishabh Pant's shot selection, which triggered the collapse of the Indian team.
"Yes, absolutely around tea time when Rishabh Pant and Yashasvi Jaiswal had batted through the post-lunch session, it certainly looked like 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.
The whole idea was to 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,” Gavaskar said.
Indian captain Rohit Sharma's clarification that Shubman Gill was not dropped for the Boxing Day Test against Australia did not sit well with renowned cricketer Sunil Gavaskar, who claimed that the move could only be classified as a drop.
The decision to dismiss Gill in favor of all-rounder Washington Sundar, which aimed to improve lower middle-order batting depth, received criticism. However, Rohit underlined that the decision was not taken completely by him.
Gavaskar did mince his words when he was asked for his view during a discussion on Star Sports on Rohit's statement during the post-match press conference.
"How much bowling did you give to Washington Sundar? What cushion are you talking about? The requirement of the team is perfectly fine. You need tomakee decisions based on that, but you left him (Gill) out of the team, you can only call it dropped in whichever language you might speak.
You can say you omitted or dropped him, both are the same. Omit looks different, the drop looks different, and the left out looks different. I am talking about English but in the end, that guy was sitting in the dugout and was not on the ground," Gavaskar said.
Sundar bowled just 19 overs in the match, taking one wicket across two innings. With the bat, he contributed a responsible 50-run knock in India's first innings and remained unbeaten on five in the second.
