“I can’t understand that kind of captaincy” Gautam Gambhir on Virat Kohli

Navdeep Saini and Virat Kohli
Navdeep Saini (left) and Virat Kohli (right) in 2nd ODI between Australia vs India on 29th November 2020 at SCG (Image Source: BCCI)

Team India has already lost the ODI series by 2-0 with one match to go against Australia. Talking about the international matches Indian team has lost the last 5 ODI matches. The Indian team has lost last ODI series against New Zealand by 3-0 and now 2-0 vs Australia.

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Before the series starts from Allan Border to Michael Vaughan has questioned the line-up of the Indian cricket team and said it’s early to say but team India will be very tough times in Australia this time around and the same thing happened.

For the series defeat Indian captain Virat Kohli is being criticized for his captaincy by many sportspersons. Recently after the 2nd match defeat against Australia at Sydney, former Indian opening batsman Gautam Gambhir has also criticized Virat Kohli’s captaincy.

GAUTAM GAMBHIR CRITICIZE CAPTAINCY OF VIRAT KOHLI

gautam gambhir, gautam, Gautam Gambhir on Virat Kohli captaincy
Gautam Gambhir (Source: Google Images)

Former Indian batsman Gautam Gambhir criticized the decision implemented by Virat Kohli. Gautam Gambhir commented on the captaincy of Virat Kohli as immature during the second game of the series. In an interaction with ESPN Cricinfo’s Gautam Gambhir reckons

“I can’t understand the captaincy, to be honest. We kept talking about how important is to take wickets upfront if we have to stop this kind of batting line-up and then you make your premier bowler bowl two overs. Normally, in a One Day game probably there are three spells of 4-3-3 overs. Or probably the maximum is four overs,” Gautam Gambhir told ESPNCricinfo.

“But if you stop your premier fast bowler just by bowling two overs upfront with the news, I can’t understand that kind of captaincy. I probably can’t even explain that captaincy. It is not T20 cricket. I probably can’t understand the reason to be honest because that was poor captaincy,” Gautam Gambhir added

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Talking about the second ODI, Australian captain Aaron Finch decided to bat after winning the toss. The top five Australian batsman smashed half-centuries to take the scoreboard to 389 runs for the loss of 4 wickets. Steve Smith (104) and Glenn Maxwell 63* were highlights of the Australian inning. In response to this, team India scored 338 runs in the 50 overs and lost the match by 51 runs.

INDIA NEEDS AN ALL-ROUNDER TO BALANCE THE EQUATION – GAUTAM GAMBHIR

Hardik Pandya bowling, Gautam Gambhir on Virat Kohli captaincy
Hardik Pandya bowling in 2nd ODI between Australia vs India on 29th November 2020 at SCG (Image Source: BCCI)

In the current team there is a hardly a genuine match-winner who can matches for team India like Suresh Raina or Yuvraj Singh. With Hardik Pandya (who seems to be not fit) and Jadeja team can’t much in such a massive chase. Gautam Gambhir on this further added –

They could have given someone like Washington Sundar or Shivam Dube or whoever was there in the squad to play the next game and see how they go into the one-day format. But if you don’t have anyone in Australia then it is a selection error as well,” said Gautam Gambhir.

“Unless and until you don’t judge someone you will never be able to find how good he is at the international level. India has not taken those options to Australia and those might come back to hurt them big time,” Gautam Gambhir added

What’s next?

The next ODI is to be played at Canberra on 2 December. After this T20I series will start followed by the Test series from 11th December with the first test match.


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