Sunil Gavaskar slammed Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma for their poor display in Melbourne on Monday. (File/AP)Batting legend Sunil Gavaskar on Monday made a scathing assessment of seniors Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, holding them responsible for the top-order failure and India’s eventual 184-run defeat in the Boxing Day Test against Australia in Melbourne.
While a win gradually faded out from the equation, India’s batters could not apply their defensive acumen to see out the game, with Rohit and Kohli falling cheaply on single-digit scores.
Kohli, who was been found wanting for his persisting outside off-stump issues, fell for another delivery in the channel as he edged Mitchell Starc into the slip cordon. Even as he appeared to have approached the second innings with a straighter, side-on stance according to former India head coach Ravi Shastri on commentary, Kohli exhibited a noticeable flaw in the attempted drive that Gavaskar picked up on.
“The (Kohli’s) foot is not going to the pitch of the ball, the foot is going straight down the pitch, not towards the ball. If the foot goes more towards the ball, you have more chances of hitting the ball from the middle,” Gavaskar told India Today.
“Because the foot is not moving you end up reaching for the ball and that is what has been happening,” he observed.
Sunil Gavaskar highlighted the lingering issue with Virat Kohli’s front-foot.
Gavaskar lambasted Kohli and Rohit’s no-show and affirmed that the top-order, barring Yashasvi Jaiswal, was to blame for the defeat that put the Aussies up ahead at 2-1 in the series.
Set a target of 340 on the final day of the fourth Test, the Indian batters, with the exception of Yashasvi Jaiswal (84), faltered yet again to lose the match by 184 runs and trail 1-2 in the five-match series.
“It all depends on the selectors. The contributions that were expected have not come. It is the top-order which has to contribute, if the top-order is not contributing, why blame the lower-order.
Edged and caught behind the wicket, all of Virat Kohli's dismissals this series have had a common theme #AUSvIND pic.twitter.com/5mz5SGcAbh
— 7Cricket (@7Cricket) December 30, 2024
“The seniors have not really made the contribution that they should have, all that they had to do was bat out today and live to fight another day in Sydney,” Gavaskar added.
“…it’s just that the top-order didn’t contribute and that is the reason India found itself in this position.”
Gavaskar heaped praise for Jaiswal for his second successive 80-plus score of the match, but was left unhappy with Pant’s second dismissal off a rash stroke in the match, falling prey to the long-on fielder from a mistimed slog off Travis Head.
“The issue is this shot called sixer in cricket and which is like a drug. Once you hit a couple of sixes, then you think that’s a real a high because once you hit the ball cleanly of the middle of the bat and it goes into the stands, there is no better feeling for a batter. Sixer is a different feeling and it’s a drug, it gets into your system,” Gavaskar said.
“At that particular point of time there was no need to go for a six, it was not going to win us the match. There was a long on there, there was a deep square leg there, so if a pull shot along the ground would have been attempted it would have got you four runs, and that is how it opened the door for Australia.”
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