Last Update on: January 10th, 2019 at 12:29 am
Recently updated on January 10th, 2019 at 12:29 am
The former cricketer, Sunil Gavaskar feels that India lacked the preparations to tackle the bowling line-up of England. In his column for Times of India, Gavaskar felt dissatisfied with the Indian developments during the ongoing Test series of between England and India. As of now, the Three Lions are dominating the Lord’s Test.
The visiting bowlers once again displayed an upper hand to for a while in the second Test match at Lord’s, but that didn’t turn out to be enough. Keeping Jonny Bairstow and Chris Woakes’ partnership at bay, Indian bowling attack created chances at regular intervals.
While shedding light on the English conditions and the U-turn that ultimately helped England, Gavaskar feels Virat Kohli-led team got a bit difficult pitch to bat on.
During the third day of the Test fixture, Lord’s witnessed the sun shining brightly. After witnessing India’s debacle in the first innings, it became easier to bat on when England came to bat.
The presence of sun affected the swing resulting which pushed India on the backfoot. Unlike England bowlers, Indian bowling line-up kept the ball full to get seam off the surface.
England vs India, Test Series: Sunil Gavaskar on Shikhar Dhawan –
While reacting to the changes done by the skipper, Kohli, Gavaskar feels that Shikhar Dhawan acted as a mere scapegoat. He thinks that it was not a wise decision from Kohli to drop a free-flowing opening batsman.
“India, despite losing the first Test where their batsmen, apart from skipper Kohli, looked all at sea. They didn’t strengthen their batting and left out perennial scapegoat Shikhar Dhawan.”
It was James Anderson once again who bamboozled the batting line up of India. India’s batting line-up fall like a pack of cards and appears helpless before the swinging conditions.
With the help of Anderson’s late outswingers, Anderson added another five-wicket haul to his tally.
“No praise can be too high for Jimmy Anderson, who bowled splendidly. He utilized the typical English conditions. His late outswingers looked like fast leg-breaks, so much was the movement away from the right-handed batsmen.”
