Former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir believes only individual performances can help Australia stage a comeback in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar series. Gambhir feels the Australian batters should not alter their technique in the middle of the series and if they do, they might not even manage the score of 260 runs they got in the first innings of the second Test.
Australia lost the second Test match by six wickets after they were bundled out for a paltry score of 113 runs in the second innings. The visitors lost nine wickets for only 52 runs in the morning session of the third day’s play.
Furthermore, Australia could only manage 177 and 91 in the two innings of the first Test match at Nagpur. Thus, their batters have failed to savor success on difficult Indian pitches.
“I believe you cannot teach defense to these batters now. If you try to improve your technique in the middle of the series, you won’t even score the 260 and 120 you scored. Only individual performances can help Australia stage a comeback and not a collective performance,” said Gambhir on Star Sports.
Gambhir feels a lot of Australian players will have a lack of confidence after their poor showing in the first two Test matches.
“There are a lot of players in that dressing room, who will have so many self-doubts that it will be extremely difficult to recover from that. Imagine if Usman Khawaja scores a double hundred or Steve Smith individually scores a century or 150, then Australia can achieve those scores but technically, I don’t see them coming back,” Gambhir added.
The former left-handed opener added that Australia have the players, who can help them stage a comeback in the series but it is going to be difficult for them.
“I cannot predict if it will be 4-0 because this dressing room still has individuals – Steve Smith, Labuschagne, Usman Khawaja. If one of them scores a double century, you would remember Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman did that when India were down and out, one player scored a 280 and another scored a 150 after a follow-on and India won the series. Such things have happened. So you can’t count them out but technically, there are a lot of issues,” said Gambhir.
The third Test match of the series will be played at Indore from March 1.
