Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar feels Team India's self-confidence was affected after losing to Pakistan by 10 wickets in the T20 World Cup 2021. India had a 12-match winning streak against Pakistan which was broken after the loss in their tournament opener.
Speaking to India Today, Gavaskar said they were taken aback by the defeat, and the effect of the outcome against arch-rivals reflected in their approach in the next match against New Zealand which they lost by 8 wickets.
"You have got to congratulate New Zealand for the way they played. They didn't allow India the freedom to play their natural game. Yes, you might argue that Rohit Sharma should have opened the batting but look at the way New Zealand bowled," he said.
"Having lost to Pakistan had certainly demoralized the Indian team. For the last 12 World Cup events, India hadn't lost but suddenly they lost and they lost very badly. And I think certainly dented their self-confidence. What they needed against New Zealand was to get off to a great start. But in the first 6 overs, they lost 2 wickets.
"I have been stressing that teams winning the powerplays go on to win the match. And that's exactly what happened. New Zealand won both their bowling and batting powerplay," he added.
India captain Virat Kohli had made a statement against the 'outside noise' ahead of the clash against New Zealand. He said the criticism from outside doesn't matter to the dressing room.
Gavaskar believes Kohli and co should accept constructive criticism sometimes which can also help them in boosting their performance. "This outside world is not sound-proof. Somebody or the other is going to be saying something or the other, which you are going to hear.
"So to say that you are chucking out the outside noise is easy because what they tell is we don't care about the outside world, which is fair enough. It's understandable because the team doesn't want to be influenced by what has happened.
"But sometimes an outside perspective does help. An outside perspective which you can consider. Maybe, there is some sense in what the outside perspective is and maybe at that particular point of time, you get into a cocoon," he added.
(With India Today Inputs)
