Why is Gautam Gambhir adamant on this?Image Credit source: Getty Images
The Australia tour did not prove to be good for Team India and it lost the ODI series in the first 3 matches. There was more focus on this series due to the return of new captain Shubman Gill and Virat Kohli-Rohit Sharma. But Team India's performance in this series was worse than average and it did not appear to be in a position to compete. But apart from the performance of the players, coach Gautam Gambhir's stubbornness is also questionable as to why he decided to play three all-rounders in both the matches, which did not benefit the team in any way.
Australia also defeated Team India in the second match of the ODI series in Adelaide on Thursday 23 October. In this match, the Indian team batted first and scored 264 runs after losing 9 wickets. Australia achieved this target in 47 overs by losing 8 wickets. Earlier, the host team had won the match played in Perth. In this way, Australia won the series 2-0 even before the third match.
In the defeat of Team India, along with the failure of batsmen like captain Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul, poor fielding is also the target of everyone, which is also right. But isn't the decision taken before the match regarding the playing-11 the reason for this failure? This question arises because Team India did not make any changes in the playing-11 for both the matches. The effect of this was that the team's biggest spinner Kuldeep Yadav remained out of both the matches and this remains the biggest topic of discussion.
Kuldeep did not get a place in the team because 3 pure all-rounders were included in the playing-11, out of which two – Axar Patel and Washington Sundar, were spinners. The third all-rounder was Nitish Kumar Reddy. The only reason for this decision was to give depth to the batting line-up, the effect of which was seen in the weakening of the bowling. Remember that there are already no experienced fast bowlers like Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami in this series. In such a situation, the play of the team's number-1 wicket taker bowler Kuldeep was very important.
Even if we leave Perth ODI aside, Team India missed Kuldeep in Adelaide. The Indian team batted first and Australia's star leg spinner Adam Zampa destroyed the Indian batting by taking 4 wickets in the middle order. In such a situation, Kuldeep could also have done the same thing. Especially when Mathews was eyeing the short pitch, Kuldeep could have been useful there as this batsman has been facing problems against spinners. Similarly, Mitchell Owen also struggles against spinners, while Kuldeep could prove to be a complete enigma for the inexperienced young Cooper Connolly, who scored only 10 runs in 6 ODIs.
At one time Australia had lost 5 wickets for 187 runs and here a spinner like Kuldeep could have proved effective. But Team India completely missed the star spinner and these three batsmen proved to be the big difference between victory and defeat. Short scored 74 runs in 78 balls, Owen scored 36 runs in 23 balls and Connolly returned with an unbeaten 61 runs in 53 balls, leading the team to victory.
Now if we talk about Team India's all-rounders, their performance was nothing special. Akshar showed wonders with the bat and scored a quick 44 runs in 41 balls. But Sundar scored 12 runs in 14 balls and Nitish scored only 8 runs in 10 balls. In bowling, all three together bowled 20 overs and took only 3 wickets while spending 113 runs. In these too, Nitish proved to be very expensive, who gave 24 runs in his 3 overs and did not get any success. That is, it is clear that if Team India had thought of strengthening the bowling instead of focusing on giving depth to the batting and had not dropped a bowler like Kuldeep, then the outcome of the match as well as the series could have been different.
