India vs England: No Show With The Ball, But Why Sunil Gavaskar Thinks Washington Sundar Won't Be Dropped

India vs England: After India’s recent heroics and more importantly, the courage that this team showed in Australia, not many would have expected the home team to be trailing 0-1 in the four match Test series after the first game against England. Team India beaten by a massive margin of 227 runs in the Chennai Test match and now in order to book a successful meeting with New Zealand in the all-important ICC World Test Championship, the hosts need to win atleast two of the remaining three games and cannot even afford to lose any of Test matches. Former India’s batting legend Sunil Gavaskar still believes that this is a very good Indian team and they have the ability to bounce back in the series.

IND vs ENG: Gavaskar reckons India will not make more than one change

During the post-match press conference, the Indian captain Virat Kohli did accept the fact that the spin bowling duo of Shahbaz Nadeem and Washington Sundar failed to support the rest of the Indian bowlers in the Chennai Test and as a result, England posted a massive first innings total of 578 runs. Nadeem picked up just four wickets in the Test match and was also lacked discipline and control in both the innings.

On the other hand, Sundar played a remarkable unbeaten knock of 85 runs with the bat in the first innings to bail his team out of trouble. However, the all-rounder failed to contribute much with the ball. Gavaskar stated that due to his brilliance with the bat, Sundar should retain his place for the second Test match in Chennai starting from February 13.

“What we heard at the press conference, there could be possible just one change. I can’t see too many changes happening because ‘too many changes’ is a sign of panic. And there is no need to panic,” Gavaskar told Star Sports.

“This is a very good team. This team was outplayed and it can happen. Yes, we talked about how the toss was important because you get to bat on good pitches which are much better than on the fourth and the fifth day. So, there could be just one change but Washington Sundar is not going to be that change. Because of the way he has batted,” he added.

Sunil Gavaskar wants Sundar to improve his bowling

Sundar failed to pick up a single wicket in the first Test match against India. The Tamil Nadu all-rounder has batted very well both in Australia and in the first innings of the Chennai Test, but former Indian captain reckons that Sundar will have to work on his bowling. Gavaskar observed that the off-spinner bowled pretty much flat and should try giving the ball as much as air to become successful in the longest format of the game.

“Maybe, he might get to bowl a little bit more. He is more a T20 type of a bowler because he bowls flat, flat, flat and doesn’t really gives the ball much air as Ashwin does. But it’s something that he can always, in the company of Ashwin sitting and talking to him more -both are Chennai boys – learn and can get better at. So, he definitely will be there. Who goes out that, we’ll have to wait and see,” Gavaskar concluded.

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