Former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir could not understand India’s team management decision to demote Suryakumar Yadav in the World Cup final against Australia at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad on Sunday. India suffered a huge blow in the middle overs as Virat Kohli was dismissed for 54.
With another 21 overs remaining, the team’s think tank decided to promote Ravindra Jadeja to number six. However, the ploy didn’t work as Jadeja was dismissed after scoring nine runs from 22 balls whereas SKY could only manage 18 runs off 28 balls on a slow pitch as run-scoring became difficult.
Suryakumar Yadav is known for his blistering batting and he was added to the team’s playing XI after Hardik Pandya was ruled out with an ankle injury.
Gautam Gambhir said on Sportskeeda, “Honestly, I did not watch him [Suryakumar] but. However, demoting him to number seven was not the right call. Honestly, I did not understand that.”
KL Rahul had failed to change gears after Virat Kohli was dismissed as he scored 66 runs off 107 balls and thus Gambhir feels it would have made more sense to send Suryakumar Yadav.
“KL Rahul was batting at a particular tempo after Virat got out. So it makes even more sense to send Suryakumar Yadav in and tell him to play aggressive cricket. Play your natural game because Ravindra Jadeja is there to follow you,” Gambhir opined.
Gambhir added that Suryakumar Yadav would have batted with a different mindset if he had known that Ravindra Jadeja was to follow him but he had to play cautiously as India had a long tail.
“Imagine the player’s mindset as well. It’s very easy for any expert to say that Suryakumar Yadav struggled. But his mindset was that if he got dismissed, after him, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Kuldeep Yadav were left. If he knew that Jadeja was to follow him, his mindset would have been different. You are playing a pure batter. If you are not confident that he can bat at the No. 6, you might as well have picked someone else,” the 42-year-old explained.
On the other hand, Wasim Akram also shared his surprise at SKY’s demotion in the batting order.
Former Pakistan captain said, “He was playing as a pure batter. If four overs were left and there was Hardik, you could have sent him in. I would have understood that. But here, so many overs were left.”
