Former India wicketkeeper-batter Deep Dasgupta commented on Team India’s missed opportunity to win the second Test against Sri Lanka in Colombo. They won the recently concluded two-match Test series 1-0, as the second Test ended in a draw as well. He added that Shubman Gill should have declared their first innings slightly earlier, which would have given the bowlers some extra time to play with as well.

“I feel it had nothing to do with the last day. I’ll take you back to day two, we declared after scoring 500. That should have happened in five sessions and not six. We may not have won with an extra session, but planning could have been better. We batted for an extra session,” he said in a video on his YouTube channel.

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“It was a difficult call (follow on) as you did not have time. If you had a session or two more, then you may have. Ideally Shubman and Gautam would have asked the bowlers. If you had scored fast, you would have some more time. The decision was fine. It was just that the bowlers were tired and it did not go India’s way,” he shared again.

Meanwhile, the draw in the second Test against Sri Lanka made Team India’s chances of making it to the World Test Championship (WTC) final tougher as well. However, Deep Dasgupta said that he was not thinking of the WTC and rather
said that the team use the rest of the cycle to get better for the upcoming cycles as well.

“I am not even thinking of the WTC in this cycle. I might get some backlash, but I will stick to my thought process, which is making use of this cycle to dominate in the next two cycles. This is a good opportunity. You can see the seam options in New Zealand and the spin in the BGT at home,” Deep Dasgupta concluded.