It's not fair to blame the Indian batsmen: Sunil Gavaskar

On Saturday, Team India registered their lowest score in an innings of a Test match. Thus it gave the hosts an easy and hassle-free target to chase and take home the first Test match. 

Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar said that it's not ideal to blame the batsmen for the catastrophic batting collapse. The 71-year-old was a part of the 1974 Indian team where England had bowled them out for 42 runs in the third innings.

“I mean, any team that is all-out for its lowest test score since the time it started playing cricket, that's never good to see. But having said that, if any other team had been facing that kind of bowling, they would have also got out, maybe be not all-out for 36, maybe 72 or 80-90,” Sunil Gavaskar told during the post-match show on Channel7.

Australian pace Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell bowled brilliant spells which helped them secure the Test Match.

“But the way Hazlewood, Cummins bowled and the earlier 3-over spell from Starc, they asked a lot of questions. So it's not fair to blame the Indian batsmen for the way they got out because it was just simply superb bowling by the Australian bowlers,” he added.

The character displayed by the Aussie bowlers in the third innings really brought a formidable challenge to India, which had held a decent lead after the second innings. 

“When you face bowling of that quality, with that line and length, it’s very difficult to score runs and that’s what happened to the Indians today,” the batting maestro said.

Sunil Gavaskar went down the memory lane to a horrific Monday on June 24, 1974, when India was outplayed by England.

“In the same way as in 1974, overcast conditions at Lord’s with the ball swinging around, none of us got out playing bad shots, we were all trapped lbw or caught behind. I have to say, but for that classy five I got, they would never have reached 42,” recalled the former Indian captain.