Australia succumbed to a six-wicket defeat at the hands of India in the second Test inside three days at Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi.
At the close of play on Day 2, the Pat Cummins-led side was in the driver’s seat with a second-innings score of 61/1 and an overall lead of 62 runs. However, Ravindra Jadeja (7/42) spun a web around Australia with the ball in the first session on the third day, bundling out the visitors for a paltry 113.
The hosts then chased down the 115-run target to take an unbeaten 2-0 lead in the four-match series and also retain the Border Gavaskar Trophy for fourth straight time.
Amidst Australia’s struggles in the Indian conditions, former cricketer Gautam Gambhir has said that only individual performances can help the tourists stage a comeback in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Speaking to Star Sports, Gambhir opined the Australian batters can’t change their technique in the middle of the series and their only hopes of a comeback rest on individual brilliance.
"I believe you cannot teach defense to these batters now. If you try to improve your technique in the middle of the series, you won't even score the 260 and 120 you scored. Only individual performances can help Australia stage a comeback and not a collective performance,” said Gambhir.
According to the ex-India opener, there will be a lot of self-doubt within the Australian dressing room and it can be very difficult to recover from that.
"There are a lot of players in that dressing room, who will have so many self-doubts that it will be extremely difficult to recover from that. Imagine if Usman Khawaja scores a double hundred or Steve Smith individually scores a century or 150, then Australia can achieve those scores but technically, I don't see them coming back,” he added.
However, Gambhir refused to predict whether India would be able to complete a clean sweep since the Aussies have players like Steve Smith, Marnus Labuschagne and Usman Khawaja in their ranks.
"I cannot predict if it will be 4-0 because this dressing room still has individuals - Steve Smith, Labuschagne, Usman Khawaja. If one of them scores a double century, you would remember Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman did that when India were down and out, one player scored a 280 and another scored a 150 after a follow-on and India won the series. Such things have happened. So you can't count them out but technically, there are a lot of issues,” he stated.
The third Test is scheduled to be played in Indore from March 1.
