Border Gavaskar Trophy: With India going into the Adelaide Pink Ball Test match in the Border Gavaskar trophy with a 1-0 lead in the five-Test series and with reports of a rift in the Australian dressing room, Indian legend and former Indian opener Sunil Gavaskar understands that there is a panic in the Australian ranks and has called pacer Josh Hazelwood’s injury as a mystery ahead of the second Test starting December 6.
“The panic in the Australian ranks is palpable, what with former players calling for heads to be chopped off and some even hinting at cracks in the Australian team after Josh Hazlewood’s media interview at the end of the third day’s play, where he suggested that it was up to the batters to now do something. Now, a few days later, Hazlewood is out of the second Test and possibly the series too with a supposed side strain. Strange, since nobody had noticed anything wrong with Hazlewood at that media conference. Mystery, mystery — the like of which used to be common in Indian cricket in the past. Now it’s the Aussies, and like old McDonald, I’m simply loving it,” Gavaskar wrote in his column for Sportstar.
With the opening Test at Perth seeing India registering one of its highest wins by runs over Australia in Australia with the 295-run win, Gavaskar remembered how the Australian media had written things about Indian batsmen struggling on the Perth pitch ahead of the opening Test. Calling them scaremongers, the Indian legend took a dig at them. “What a splendid win, one of the best I have been privileged to be present at. All the boasts about how the pitch is going to be pacy and bouncy and scare the living daylights out of the Indian batters were exactly that — the boasts of a bully. Mind you, it wasn’t the Aussie players but their support staff in the media, both electronic and print, who were trying to be scaremongers,” Gavaskar wrote.
Gavaskar further made a reference to the Perth Test in India’s tour in 2007-08. With the Monkeygate scandal between Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds happening in the Sydney Test, Gavaskar was reminded how Australian media was going nuts over the inclusion of pacer Shaun Tait for the Perth test. “It was very similar to 2007/8 after the kerfuffle between Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds in the Sydney Test match. The Australian selectors had added Shaun Tait to the Aussie squad for the next Test match in Perth, and the media were going nuts, suggesting he was going to blow the Indians away on the fast, bouncy WACA pitch in Perth. What happened? ‘The Wall’ was so solid, but before that, the swashbuckling Virender Sehwag had just swatted Brett Lee, Tait, and the others as if he was swatting the famous Perth flies. At the end of the Test match, guess what happened? Tait took an indefinite break from international cricket,” Gavaskar wrote.
He also showered praise on Indian skipper for Perth Test Jasprit Bumrah. Apart from youngster Yashasvi Jaisal. “Jasprit Bumrah led from the front with a bowling effort that would have tested the greatest of batters across eras. He was constantly at them, and there was hardly a delivery that the batters could relax against, as he asked uncomfortable questions regularly. While Bumrah definitely had help from the pitch, the way the batters batted on an unfamiliar surface was most heartening. That young Yashasvi Jaiswal showed he is a quick learner was evident by the straightness of his bat at the start of the second innings,” Gavaskar wrote.
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