Melbourne: The legendary Sunil Gavaskar on Monday lashed out at senior players such as Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli for letting the team down and blamed the Indian top-order for losing the Boxing Day Test against Australia here.
Set a target of 340 on the final day of the fourth Test, the Indian batters, with the exception of Yashasvi Jaiswal (84), faltered yet again to lose the match by 184 runs and trail 1-2 in the five-match series.
“It all depends on the selectors. The contributions that were expected have not come. It is the top-order which has to contribute, if the top-order is not contributing, why blame the lower-orde,” he said.
“The seniors have not really made the contribution that they should have, all that they had to do was bat out today and live to fight another day in Sydney,” Gavaskar told a TV channel. “...it’s just that the top-order didn’t contribute and that is the reason India found itself in this position.”
While Gavaskar praised Jaiswal for his gritty knock, the batting great once again was not impressed by Rishabh Pant’s shot selection, which opened the floodgates for Australia.
Joining hands at 33/3, Jaiswal and Pant looked to have settled down, taking India to 121 in the post-lunch session, before a rash shot from Pant set the team back.
“Yes, absolutely around tea time when Rishabh Pant and Yashasvi Jaiswal had batted through the post-lunch session, it certainly looked India could achieve a draw because it was a matter of batting for another hour really without losing a wicket, and Australia would have then given up,”
Gavaskar said.