Sydney:
Now that with the defeat in the last test, Team India has lost the series 3-1 to Australia, its post-mortem has also started. Legendary Sunil Gavaskar on Sunday urged Indian batsmen to play the Ranji Trophy without any excuses to overcome the technical shortcomings that have led to the team’s two consecutive series defeats against New Zealand and Australia. Gavaskar said that the disappointing performance of Indian batsmen at home against New Zealand and in the recently concluded series against Australia is worrying. India had to face a 0-3 clean sweep against New Zealand at home while the team had to face a 1-3 defeat in Australia.
Gavaskar told ‘Star Sports’, “The next round of Ranji Trophy is on January 23. Let’s see how many players of this team play. There should be no excuse for not playing.” If they don’t play, Gautam Gambhir will have to take some tough decisions against those players who are not available for Ranji Trophy.”
Gavaskar said, “Gambhir should say that you do not have that commitment. We need commitment. You are not playing. Do whatever you want to do, but for the sake of Indian cricket you cannot come back to the Test team. .” Gavaskar said that due to not playing domestic cricket at available opportunities, there have been flaws in the attitude of the Indian batsmen.
He said, “What I saw were technical lapses. If you are making the same mistakes and I am not talking only about this series. I am also talking about the New Zealand series – you have seen New Zealand in India. Gavaskar said that domestic cricket becomes important considering the upcoming 2025-2027 World Test Championship cycle and India should now focus more on young cricketers like Yashasvi Jaiswal and Nitish Kumar Reddy.
He said, “They are hungry to make a name for India and themselves. There is a need for such players. You need such players who guard their wicket like their life.” Gavaskar said, “So I am interested.” I want to see who will play in the Ranji Trophy matches on January 23 because there will be T20 matches against England at that time, but will those who are not playing T20 play Ranji Trophy matches or not?