Former India head coach Ravi Shastri has come down hard on current men’s team coach Gautam Gambhir, openly questioning his team selections in the ongoing Test series against South Africa. Shastri mentioned that he has been trying to understand the logic behind several decisions that were taken.
“Just doesn’t make sense,” Shastri said on air in the second match. “I don’t understand the thought process there. And when they look back at the series, some of the selections… I am still trying to fathom the thought process behind them. In Kolkata, one of the spinners (Sundar) bowled just one over. Ideally, you could have gone with another specialist batsman. Similarly, here, Washington batted at three in the last Test and could have easily batted at four here, now that you had a number three. He’s not a number eight; he’s far better than a number eight,” he added.
Shastri’s frustration stems from what he calls India’s growing fixation with fielding multiple all-rounders in Test matches. Since Gambhir took charge last year, players like Nitish Kumar Reddy and Harshit Rana have risen in prominence, while pure specialists especially Sarfaraz Khan have seemingly been pushed to the sidelines.
In the series ongoing, India chose three spin-bowling all-rounders and even promoted Washington Sundar to No. 3 ahead of specialist batter Sai Sudharsan in the first Test. The defeat by 30 runs saw only minor changes for the second Test: Sudharsan came back in for an injured Shubman Gill, and Nitish Kumar Reddy came in for Axar Patel, retaining a bottom order equally reliant on all-rounders. Sundar went back down the order to No. 8 as Sudharsan took back his No. 3 spot.
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Shastri underlined that Gambhir’s template is in complete contrast to the approaches adopted by him and his successor Rahul Dravid, who opted for a more standard Test template-five specialist batters, an attacking keeper, and five frontline bowlers, with R. Ashwin and R. Jadeja providing bonus depth.
If this was not all, Gambhir now stands at the threshold of an unwanted record: he will be the first Indian coach to face a three-Test home whitewash. On Monday, South Africa tightened their grip on the series further, as they bowled out India at the score of 201 defending a massive 489 in the second innings.
