Sunil Gavaskar: ‘I expected more from Rohit Sharma’

Former India batter Sunil Gavaskar was critical of India skipper Rohit Sharma’s captaincy, admitting that he expected more from the veteran. Gavaskar stressed on the fact that leading the country in overseas assignments was the actual Test.

Rohit Sharma had recently led India in the World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia at The Oval in London, but a series of questionable decisions and wrong tactical moves led to his team’s heavy defeat to Pat Cummins and Co.

Rohit had also led the Men in Blue in the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia, where they had lost to England in the semi-finals. India have not won an ICC trophy since winning the 2013 Champions Trophy under MS Dhoni.

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“I expected more from him (Rohit). In India it is different, but when you do well overseas that is really the test. That is where he has been a little disappointing. Even in the T20 format, with all the experience of the IPL, hundreds of matches as captain, with a mix of best IPL players not being able to get to the finals has been disappointing,” he said at the Indian Express Idea Exchange.

He also questioned if the BCCI had conducted a thorough review of India’s consistent failure in performing good at big games.

“They should be asking questions, ‘Why did you field first?’ Okay, it was explained at the toss that it was overcast and all. The question after that should be, ‘You didn’t know about Travis Head’s weakness against the short ball?’ Why was the bouncer employed only when he had scored 80 runs. You know, the moment Head came in to bat, in the commentary box, we had Ricky Ponting saying, ‘Bounce him, bounce him.’ Everyone knew about it but we didn’t try,” he said.

Gavaskar also dismissed the excuse Sharma had given about not getting ample time to prepare after losing the WTC final to Australia by 209 runs.

“What kind of preparation are we talking about? Now they have gone to the West Indies. You have the example of the World Test Championship before you. Are you playing any matches? So what is this talk about 20-25 days? … When you talk about preparation, be genuine about it. Go 15 days before, play two warm-up matches. The main guys can rest, but the fringe players might be actually challenging those who are not doing well. He does not get an opportunity to show that he is good enough.”

Pointing to the lousy game shown by senior players, he argued that they were complacent of making it to the team no matter how they play. This, he believed, created a sense of nonchalance in them.

“The truth is the main guys do not want to go early. Because they know that come what may, they will get selected. And when you go early they will talk about the workload. You call yourself the fittest team in the world or fitter than the early generations then how do you break down so soon? How do you have a workload issue when you play a 20-over game?”

He also called for accountability for the coaching staff with Rahul Dravid on the top.

“If the batters are making the same mistakes over and over again, you need to ask what has happened with your technique. How have you tried to improve the batter? Have you tried to tell him, maybe take a different guard. Don’t take a leg-stump guard, take a middle and off-stump guard.

“I remember once calling Virender Sehwag out of the blue. He had not been scoring too many runs. I told him, ‘Viru, just try the off-stump guard’. So he asked, ‘Why, Sunny bhai?’ So I told him, ‘Look, you aren’t known for great footwork. What is happening is, sometimes when you are getting out, you are reaching out for the delivery and it makes things difficult for you. So, maybe if you take the off-stump guard, you straight away know that the ball is outside the off-stump’. That is where the coach can come in with his inputs,” he said.

He also alluded to spinner Ravichandran Ashwin’s recent comments about the fading culture of friendship in the team and an emerging sense of being colleagues. And suggested that this could be a factor behind the team’s failure to win big games despite being studded with top class players.

“It’s a sad thing because you should be able to get together after play ends and maybe not talk about the game but talk about music, maybe talk about the films you like, maybe talk about your interest in space. But if that is not what is happening, that is disappointing. Having said that, the new thing that started 20 years back or longer is that every player gets a single room. That too can be a factor …”

Gavaskar has been around the team regularly for along time now, but he says he doesn’t see the players coming to him to ask what he observed in their game and possibly get in some important guidance.

“No, no one has come. Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman regularly came to me. And they would approach me with a specific problem and you could tell them something which you had observed,” he said.

“I don’t have an ego about this, I could go and talk to them but since there are two coaches — Rahul Dravid and Vikram Rathore – so sometimes you hold back since you don’t want to confuse them with too much information.”

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