Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar is amazed at the fact that none of the current crop of Indian cricketers have approached him for guidance and tips. (More Cricket News)
Sunil Gavaskar has always been approached by the likes of Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag amongst others in the past but despite the batting flaws in the current Indian batters, 'Sunny' has expressed his amazement that none of the batters have reached out to him.
"If the batters are making the same mistakes over and over again, you need to ask what has happened with your technique. How have you tried to improve the batter? Have you tried to tell him, maybe take a different guard. Don't take a leg-stump guard, take a middle and off stump guard," Gavaskar was quoted in The Indian Express.
"I remember once calling Virender Sehwag out of the blue. He had not been scoring too many runs. I told him, 'Viru, just try the off-stump guard'. So he asked, 'Why, Sunny bhai?' So I told him, 'Look, you aren't known for great footwork. What is happening is, sometimes when you are getting out, you are reaching out for the delivery and it makes things difficult for you. So, maybe if you take the off-stump guard, you straight away know that the ball is outside the off-stump'. That is where the coach can come in with his inputs."
Gavaskar's comments come in the wake of India's defeat at the hands of Australian the World Test Championship 2023 final wherein the batters failed to trouble the scorers. Team India scored 296 in the first innings and were bowled out for 234 in the second innings as Rohit Sharma's lost in the final to Australia.
Last time an Indian batter went up to Sunil Gavaskar for batting tips was Mayank Agarwal in 2021 but apart from him, none of the other batters have come forward. Gavaskar has stated that he has no issues in supporting the batters but has limited himself so that it avoids confusion.
Gavaskar reiterated that he has no issues coming to the support of the batters, but has restricted himself in doing so to avoid confusion.
"No, no one has come. Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman regularly came to me. And they would approach me with a specific problem and you could tell them something which you had observed. I don't have an ego about this, I could go and talk to them but since there are two coaches — Rahul Dravid and Vikram Rathore – so sometimes you hold back since you don’t want to confuse them with too much information," added the former India captain.
