Sunil Gavaskar not pleased with England’s latest tactic

Modern day cricket is a crucible of innovations, with teams constantly pushing the envelope for favourable results. Recently England were seen using a never-seen-before tactic against hosts South Africa during the T20I series. The analyst of the team was seen using placards with a combination of letters and numbers to convey messages to the batsmen out there in the centre. However, former India captain Sunil Gavaskar, known for his purist approach towards the game, was not impressed with it.

England clarified that they had the permission from the match officials. But Gavaskar is of the view that there are better ways of communicating with players in the middle.

“Ideally, as a captain, I would not like this thing to happen. If I was the captain, I would say, look if you want to send a message about any field placing or a bowling change, then send the 12th man across with a bottle of water or anything... a way you can pass the message or the 12th man or the coach can pass the message to the boundary fielder,” Gavaskar said on the Cricket Connected Show on Star Sports.

Gavaskar wants the ICC to take cognizance of the matter and raised a few concerns.

“I would like to know if the match referee had confirmed this with the ICC? Did they ask ICC? Has the cricket committee of the ICC sanctioned this, we don’t know this yet. This is happening for the first time,” Gavaskar explained.

“We were told that this type of strategy was also used during Pakistan Super League and maybe this was the same person who adapted this technique who was an analyst there. But I don’t believe this should be happening in cricket. The 2nd thing that is worrisome is during the situation of a DRS, would there be a code there as well to help with the decision of taking the DRS?” questioned the Indian legend.

Let us know in the comments section if you agree with cricket’s latest tactic, or are you on the same page as Sunil Gavaskar.