India's longstanding conservative T20I approach has fallen under former captain Sunil Gavaskar's scanner after a humbling seven-wicket defeat against Bangladesh in the first game of the ongoing series on Sunday (November 3) in Delhi.
Gavaskar fears for the team's chances of winning the next year's T20 World Cup in Australia.
"In ICC rankings India is at 5. If they are to go to 2/3, they will have to win some big matches. And if they can't do this, it will not be easy for them to win the (T20) World Cup," the legendary batsman told India Today.
"We need to learn from the Delhi loss. You can't just forget this. We have seen that whenever the team bats first they play a lot more dot balls as compared to when they're chasing."
"In Delhi, I think there were 55 dot balls in the 1st innings, which in my opinion is too much."
Opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan played a painstakingly slow innings at the top as India failed to get the total it would've liked for the conditions in the latter half of the game when a lot of dew was expected.
Shikhar made a 42-ball 41 as India posted a modest 148/6 in 20 overs; which the visitors eventually chased down with Bangladesh great Mushfiqur Rahim scoring an unbeaten 60.
"Questions will be raised on Shikhar Dhawan if he doesn't bat well in the next 2 matches," Gavaskar said. "The team is not going to benefit if you're scoring 40-45 runs from the same number of balls."
"He will have to think about this. When players come back after the gap, it does take a lot of time to get back the rhythm."
(Inputs from India Today)
