India batting legend Sunil Gavaskar has shared his opinions ahead of the India vs Scotland match of the ongoing T20 World Cup 2021 to be played in Dubai on November 5, 2021. India needs to win this match by a big margin in order to keep their hopes alive for semi-finals qualification.
India recently beat Afghanistan to register their maiden win in the Super 12s round of the tournament and has two more matches to go including the one against Scotland and last against Namibia. To qualify for the semis, India needs to beat both associate nations by a handsome margin and hope New Zealand loses to either Afghanistan or Namibia for that matter.
Gavaskar had some handy advice for the Indian team management and urged them to pick a leg spinner in the playing XI, keeping in mind Scotland’s struggles against the quality spinners.
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"Team selection will be the key, and because the Scots rarely get to play top-class spin bowling, it may be a good idea to go in with three spinners, one of whom should be a leg spinner. Not only are good leg spinners a rarity they are also invariably slower through the air and thus tough for the batter to use pace off the pitch.
Often, when the ball is released above the eye line, the best of batsmen take a little time to read the length as their head has moved up a fraction instead of being still. So, a good leg spinner will always be able to get the wicket dot ball which is priceless in this form of the game," Sunil Gavaskar wrote in his column for The Times of India.
He also hopes that the Indian senior batters will be up to the task of continuing the aggressive approach with the bat that was seen against Afghanistan.
"What India’s batsmen need also is to shed any inhibitions and literally go for broke, as the saying is. A big margin of victory improves the net run rate, and huge losses to Pakistan and New Zealand have hurt India’s net run rate. So, the necessity to win big.
India must look to bat first like against Afghanistan and bat in a similar fashion. Another big win will put pressure on Afghanistan and New Zealand when they face each other on Sunday," Gavaskar added.
