According to Dawid Malan, who is currently the world’s number one ranked T20I batsman, Test cricket is really important to get the basics of the game right.

The left-hand batsman believes that the success of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Chris Gayle in T20I cricket is because they spent a lot of time in the longest format of the game.

“If you look at the best T20 players in the world, you see the likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Chris Gayle. They have all played close to 100 Test matches. They have all mastered the basic fundamentals by playing the longer format of the game for an extended period of time,” Malan said.

According to the Englishman, a player does not have anything to fall back on if they don’t have their basics right and fail in white-ball cricket.

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“I think sometimes the young kids who are watching or playing too much of white-ball cricket do not have the basics right; if things don’t go their way they don’t have anything to fall back on. Test cricket is the fundamental (form),” the southpaw added.

The 33-year-old then went on to praise the MI stars Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan as he said, “I really enjoyed watching SKY (Suryakumar Yadav) bat. The way he came out in the T20s. And the other leftie Ishan Kishan. Their ball-striking ability was phenomenal, they came out without any fear.”

Dawid is a part of Punjab Kings for the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2021).

(With Hindustan Times inputs)