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Sunil Gavaskar supports Gautam Gambhir after India’s 30-run loss to South Africa at Eden Gardens, blaming poor technique and temperament, not the pitch, for the failure.
Gautam Gambhir (X)
Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar has come out in support of men’s coach Gautan Gambhir, blaming the team’s 30-run defeat to South Africa at the Eden Gardens on ‘poor technique’ and ‘poor temprament’ shown by the batters. He said India should have chased the 124-run target with five wickets to spare.
Having bowled the visitors out for 159 in the first innings, India took a 30-run lead in the second and kept the Proteas down to an even lower score of 153 on the turning Eden Gardens pitch. However, old issues of playing spin on turners re-emerged as Simom Harmer and Keshav Maharaj ran through the hosts’ batting.
Some blamed the loss on the pitch, saying that just like the New Zealand 3-0 whitewash last year, wickets with extra help for spin neutralise India’s advantage of having better, more experienced spinners. However, Gambhir defended himself saying it was ‘exactly’ the pitch they wanted and his players weren’t good enough.
“Totally agree with Gautam Gambhir. 124 was chaseable on this pitch. There was no question about it,” Gavaskar told India Today. “A lot of people are talking about what the pitch was doing, but if you had a look at what Simon Harmer was doing in an over, how many of his deliveries were turning? He was mixing it up really well. He bowled straight and got the odd one to turn,” he added.
“So, it was not a vicious turning pitch. It was a pitch on which you needed to bat as if you were playing a five-day Test, not a 50-over match or a Twenty20 where, after three dot balls, you try to play a break-out-of-jail shot. That’s the issue. One hundred and twenty-four should have been chased with at least five wickets in hand with the kind of batting line-up India had,” he said.
“I fully agree with Gautam Gambhir that there was nothing wrong with the pitch. The odd ball turned, on Day 3, that’s normal. How many of Maharaj’s deliveries turned? How many of Jadeja’s or Axar’s turned?” he added. “People are calling it a spinning pitch. It was nothing vicious. Poor technique and poor temperament have landed us in this situation,” he said.
The pitch issue is a particularly curious one because former BCCI president, Gambhir’s ex-teammate and Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) chief initially said that the Indian management hadn’t asked them for a rank turner at the Eden Gardens. But later, he claimed that this was the pitch they wanted, and CAB had made sure not to water it for days before the match to keep it dry enough to aid spin.
November 17, 2025, 22:41 IST
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