Legendary Indian cricketer, Sunil Gavaskar reckons that the presence of the veteran like MS Dhoni will be a “priceless commodity” for India’s stand-in skipper Rohit Sharma during ongoing Asia Cup. In the absence of the regular skipper Virat Kohli, the Indian team will be led by Rohit in the six-nation tournament in the UAE where they lock horns with Hong Kong on Tuesday followed by Pakistan on Wednesday – the scheduling of which left Gavaskar somewhat miffed.
In his column for Times of India, Gavaskar wrote, “India has a great mix of youth and experience and their skipper Rohit Sharma loves the 50-over format and will look to add a couple of tons to his record. He is fortunate to have MS Dhoni besides him to guide him during tough times. Dhoni’s experience is a priceless commodity that’s impossible to quantify and his guidance of the young spinners is legendary.”
Team India has been practicing hard for five days ahead of their tournament opener against Hong Kong, and a day later face Pakistan in a highly-anticipated match which pits the two arch-rivals against each other for the first time since the ICC Champions Trophy final in June 2017. Rohit addressed the issues of playing back-to-back games in oppressive conditions yesterday, and Gavaskar queried the logic if successive fixtures for India.
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Gavaskar also wrote, “India’s first game against Hong Kong will be a nice warmup for the sterner battle the next day against Pakistan. How the organizers scheduled two back-to-back games for India — with the second game being against Pakistan — is hard to understand, but that’s the way it is. Normally India would like to bat first to give their batsmen valuable game time, but because they play Pakistan the very next day, they would like to finish the game early and reserve energy for that much-anticipated encounter.”
The legendary batsman also praised India’s young wrist-spin duo of Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal who have enjoyed much success together in limited-overs cricket of the past 18 months.
Elaborating the same, Gavaskar concluded, “The two wrist-spinners, Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav, in their different ways pick wickets regularly and then the way they rush to congratulate each other is reminiscent of the great spin quartet of the 70s, who also took great delight in each other’s success. The high expectations from the English tour were belied and so some disenchantment that has crept in. A solid winning performance in the Asia Cup will make up greatly for that and win back those who were ready to turn their backs on India cricket.”
