Sunil Gavaskar Explains Why It Won't Be Easy For India To Win T20 World Cup

Team India have an unerring habit of winning matches with relative ease especially in home conditions. But when it comes to intriguing events like World Cup, their performances have been far from pleasing in the final stages. They enter the showpiece event as the clear-cut favourites and they showcase an impressive display of power and might in the initial stages and eventually get knocked out by a team in the semi-final encounter. This has been the actual case so far.

Talking about India’s scenario in the build-up to the upcoming T20 World Cup 2020, Sunil Gavaskar said that India still have a lot of catching up to do to raise their standards in the truncated version of the game. After India were battered by Bangladeshi side in the T20I opener in Delhi, questions were raised about the team’s naive approach in the truncated version of the game.

In an interview with Sports Tak, the former India captain explained why it won’t be that easy for India to win the T20 World Cup. According to him, until and unless India don’t win big matches and improve the rankings, there is no chance of India coming through with flying colours. India’s recent dip in T20Is was clearly seen after their impressive 3-0 win over West Indies.

Won’t be easy for Team India to win the World Cup: Sunil Gavaskar

They were level on terms with South Africa at home and then they surrendered at the hands of Bangladesh for the first time in T20Is. “In ICC rankings India is at 5. If they are to go to 2/3, they will have to win some big matches. And if they can’t do this, it will not be easy for them to win the (T20) World Cup,” Sunil Gavaskar echoed.

Picking up the lessons on the go is the only way for Team India according to Gavaskar. Bangladesh are just a win away from winning the T20I series for the first time in India and the hosts will have to respond straightway before it is too late.

“We need to learn from the Delhi loss. You can’t just forget this. We have seen that whenever the team bats first they play a lot more dot balls as compared to when they’re chasing. In Delhi, I think there were 55 dot balls in the 1st innings, which in my opinion is too much,” said Gavaskar.

Dhawan should wake up: Sunil Gavaskar

Sunil Gavaskar said that Shikhar Dhawan’s performance in T20Is has been far from pleasing. The Indian team selectors may consider replacing him with someone else if he doesn’t live up to his reputation in the next couple of matches. Gavaskar also explained that scoring runs from the same balls is not going to benefit the team by any means, a void in which Dhawan will be looking forward to fixing it.

“Questions will be raised on Shikhar Dhawan if he doesn’t bat well in the next 2 matches. The team is not going to benefit if you’re scoring 40-45 runs from the same number of balls. He will have to think about this. When players come back after the gap, it does take a lot of time to get back the rhythm,” explained Gavaskar.