Sunil Gavaskar’s bold remark saying that Indian head coach Gautam Gambhir deserves no credit for India’s fabulous victory against Bangladesh in the Kanpur Test has landed him in hot water on social media.
After Gavaskar’s remark went viral, the internet has been filled with posts lashing out at the legendary Indian batter, who has also been asked to give up cricket commentary and punditry.
The Kanpur Test, which saw 2 days get washed out due to rain, was expected to be a draw with Bangladesh still having not finished their first inning. However, as play finally resumed on Day 4, the Men in Blue entered the pitch with an aggressive mindset in both the batting and bowling departments.
The Indian bowlers first bundled out Bangladesh for 233 before the batters came out and absolutely dominated the Bangladesh bowlers. Though India kept on losing wickets regularly, they would still end up posting a good total of 285/9 with the fourth day still not over.
Skipper Rohit Sharma would declare and the Indian bowlers would again do a fantastic job and would bundle out Bangladesh for only 146 runs to set up a target of only 95 runs for the batters to achieve. Yashasvi Jaiswal’s fifty would see India through and they would win the match by 7 wickets on the final day. With the victory, they would also win the Test series by 2-0.
Following the win, many credited Gambhir with initiating this batting revolution and aggressive brand cricket, with the word ‘Gamball’ created to describe it. But Gavaskar, in his column for Sportstar on Monday, expressed disappointment and reckoned that it should be Rohit Sharma who should be given the credit for India;’s victory and not Gambhir.
However, Gavaskar’s unflinching take drew criticism from Indian fans on social media who even told the former Indian captain to ‘keep quiet and retire’.
In his column for Sportstar, Gavaskar called Gambhir’s supporters as “foot-lickers” as he believes that the 2011- World Cup winner for India never really batted with an aggressive style during his time with the Men in Blue.
“While one paper called the Indian batting ‘Bossball’ because the captain or ‘boss’ of the team, Rohit, had shown the way, some from the old powers referred to it as ‘Gamball’ after the Indian coach, Gautam Gambhir,” Gavaskar wrote.
“While the England batting approach changed completely under the new regime of Ben Stokes and McCullum, we have seen over the last couple of years that Rohit has been batting like this and encouraging his team to do so as well. Gambhir has only been coaching for a couple of months, so attributing this approach to him is foot-licking of the highest quality. Gambhir himself hardly ever batted in this fashion like McCullum used to do. If any credit is due, it is solely to Rohit and nobody else,” Gavaskar added.
