Sunil Gavaskar recently expressed his strong views on how fans are attributing India's aggressive batting style to Gautam Gambhir. Gavaskar believes this perspective is misguided and unfair.
Instead, he argues that the credit should go solely to Rohit Sharma, the captain of the Indian cricket team. Gavaskar’s comments shed light on the evolution of India's batting approach under Rohit’s leadership.
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What did Sunil Gavaskar say on such a misattribution?
In the past, cricket fans have often used catchy terms to describe batting styles. After England's "Bazball" approach, named after their coach Brendon McCullum, some fans began calling India's aggressive style "Gamball," suggesting it was influenced by Gautam Gambhir, who is the team's coach.
In his column for Sportstar, Gavaskar said that while Gambhir has recently taken on a coaching role, his time in that position is too short for him to be credited with such a significant change in batting strategy.
In contrast, Rohit has consistently led the team with a bold and aggressive mindset. Gavaskar insists that any credit for the team's approach should go to Rohit and not Gambhir.
As seen in India last year, this approach doesn’t work in Test matches and may surprise the opposition for a game or two at best. While one paper called the Indian batting 'Bossball' because the captain or 'boss' of the team, Rohit, had shown the way, some from the old powers referred to it as 'Gamball' after the Indian coach, Gautam Gambhir. While the England batting approach changed completely under the new regime of Ben Stokes and McCullum, we have seen over the last couple of years that Rohit has been batting like this and encouraging his team to do so as well. Gambhir has only been coaching for a couple of months, so attributing this approach to him is foot-licking of the highest quality. Gambhir himself hardly ever batted in this fashion like McCullum used to do. If any credit is due, it is solely to Rohit and nobody else.
He added,
Instead of using the words this-ball or that-ball, I would suggest using the skipper’s first name, Rohit, and term it the “Gohit” approach. Hopefully, brainier people will come up with a trendier name for this rather than the lazy option of calling it after 'Bazball'.
India's batting performance in the recent Test match at Kanpur was exceptional. Rohit Sharma led by example, hitting two sixes off the first two balls he faced.
This aggressive start set the tone for the rest of the innings. Yashasvi Jaiswal also hit boundaries at the start, but it was Rohit’s risky plays that caught everyone's attention.
England's bowling attack struggled against India's aggressive batting. Gavaskar pointed out that Rohit’s style completely threw the opposition bowlers off their game.
He argued that it would not be fair to give Gambhir credit for this approach when Rohit has been doing it consistently for a longer time. Gavaskar praised the ICC for introducing the World Test Championship, which gives context and importance to every Test match.
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This championship makes teams strive for victory and encourages innovative strategies. He pointed out that the recent aggressive batting in Kanpur might not have happened if there were no points at stake. The competitive nature of the championship pushes teams to perform at their best, even in challenging situations.
As India prepares for their next match against New Zealand, they will need to maintain this momentum. Gavaskar is hopeful that the team will continue to perform well under Rohit's captaincy.
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