England vs India, 4th Test: Sunil Gavaskar Criticises Team India Batters for Yet Another Downfall in Fourth Innings

Legendary batsman Sunil Gavaskar has criticised the famed batting line-up of Team India for yet another dismal show against England in the fourth innings of the penultimate Test at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton on Sunday (September 2).

The visitors were set a target of 245 runs but were eventually bowled out for 184 thus handing England a 60-run victory. Courtesy the win, England has now taken an unassailable 3-1 lead in the five-match series. The dead rubber will kick off at the Oval on 7^th September.

India and yet another dismal performance:

Team India got off to the worst possible start as Stuart broad castled KL Rahul with a delivery which kept low. Top order batsman Cheteshwar Pujara, was also dismissed quite cheaply as James Anderson bagged the wicket of the first innings centurion.

Dhawan went back to the pavilion in quick time as well as the visiting team was reduced to 22 for three.

From there on, it was captain and vice-captain who revived the hopes for the visiting team. They added a partnership of 101 runs for the fourth wicket which put England under a bit of pressure.

However, the English bowlers were all over India after the fall of Kohli’s wicket. Eventually, India was bowled out for 184 in the second innings.

For yet another time Virat Kohli was the top scorer for India with 58. Rahane also chipped in with a useful 51. The Indian skipper has scored 544 runs in the series so far and is the leading run scorer among both the teams by a country mile.

Gavaskar feels that India’s downfall was because of overreliance on Kohli to score big all the time. He stated that Kohli is a human first. And on regular basis, it won’t be possible for him to go out and win matches for his team single-handedly.

Sunil Gavaskar questions India playing just five top-order batsmen in the Playing XI against England:

“When you go in with five batsmen then you are bound to be in such a situation where you rely so much only on one player, Virat Kohli to get you the big hundreds. He can’t do it every time, he’s human.

 

“To expect that the lower order (to save India after the top-order collapse) after that Kohli-Rahane partnership was broken, to get even another 60-70 runs was too much,” Gavaskar said in the post-match show with Harsha Bhogle and Graeme Swann.

Gavaskar feels that the deficiencies of the Indian batting line-up were brutally exposed. Rahane’s wicket in the final session proved to the final nail in the coffin for the visitors. Moeen Ali dismissed Kohli while it was rising star Sam Curran, who bagged the wicket of Rahane.

Wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant played a few big shots but was dismissed after making 18 off just 12 deliveries.

“Here (in Southampton) I think their deficiencies were shown. Earlier (at Edgbaston and Lord’s) I think the ball was moving around quite a bit so most opening batsmen would have struggled. But here in both these innings, I don’t think that was the case,” Gavaskar said.