‘Instead of playing smart cricket…’ – Sunil Gavaskar bashes Bangladesh for their below-par show against India
Sunil Gavaskar (Source: Twitter)
The match between India and Bangladesh, against all odds, turned out to be a nail-biting thriller. The Bangla Tigers, at one point, were on track to chase down the target of 184. Liton Das provided them with an electrifying start. He took the team to a score of 66/0 in the first seven overs before rain interrupted the game.
The game was reduced to 16 overs, with a new 151-run target. A run of wickets then turned the game around, and Bangladesh was unable to put up any meaningful partnership until Nurul Hasan and Taskin Ahmed got them close towards the end.
They were scoring quite comfortably: Sunil Gavaskar
Sunil Gavaskar, a World Cup commentator, believes it was Bangladesh who lost the match, rather than India winning it. The ex-cricketer noted Bangladesh’s poor approach while speaking to India Today from Adelaide, where he was asked if the rain break played a significant role in the outcome.
“Oh absolutely, at that particular point in time, they were 66 in seven overs, so we are taking about more than nine runs per over and they were scoring quite comfortably with 10 wickets in hand. And suddenly, when the target was reduced by almost 33 runs, they somehow seemed to have panicked. The asking rate was still the same as when they began their innings,” Gavaskar said.
“Instead of playing smart cricket, they tried to hit a six just about every ball, trying to target the short square boundaries. The Indians bowled cleverly, just out of the arc of the big shots. Hence, the shots, which otherwise would have gone for sixes were caught at long on and deep mid-wicket,” he added.
“I would say Bangladesh lost the game rather than India winning the game. Yes, India kept their nerves, but it was Bangladesh’s batting where they panicked and tried to play too many glory shots. If they had played smart cricket, worked the ball around for twos, they would have got 10 runs an over and that’s all that they needed,” he concluded.
