Former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar said India’s self-esteem suffered a blow after losing to Pakistan by 10 wickets in the T20 World Cup opener, and this shows in the way Virat Kohli’s men took on the crunch game New Zealand on Sunday.
Speaking to India Today, Sunil Gavaskar said that India was surprised by its first loss to arch-rivals in a World Cup campaign and that it has looked demoralized ever since.
India’s T20 World Cup campaign is in tatters as the former champions stares at an early exit after losing their first two games in the flagship event for the first time. India’s net run rate has taken a blow since Pakistan hammered them with 10 wickets and New Zealand did this at 8 wickets. India was limited to 151 by Pakistan and it got worse when they only managed 110 on the board in a tentative batting game against New Zealand in Dubai.
India looked confused on the field as they left veteran opening player Rohit Sharma in third place after Ishan Kishan joined KL Rahul at the helm after the left-handed replaced the injured Suryakumar Yadav. The move backfired when Ishan was fired for 4 and Rohit did not survive the spin test against Ish Sodhi in the middle overs.
“You have to congratulate New Zealand on the way they play. You haven’t given India the freedom to play its natural game. “Said Gavaskar.
“The defeat against Pakistan had certainly demoralized the Indian team. India had not lost in the last 12 World Cup events, but suddenly they lost very strongly. And I think they weakened their self-confidence. What they needed against New.” Zealand should get off to a good start but lost 2 wickets in the first 6 overs.
“I stressed that teams that win the power plays win the game. And that’s exactly what happened. New Zealand won both their bowling and batting power plays,” he added.
Sometimes the outside perspective helps: Gavaskar
Virat Kohli has often insisted that outside criticism is irrelevant to the dressing room, and he has repeated it after India’s defeat by Pakistan. However, there were some changes that were made to the clash against New Zealand, which looked a bit desperate, especially after just one loss in the tournament.
Gavaskar shed light on how teams deal with what Virat Kohli calls “outside noise,” and sometimes constructive criticism can help the team.
“This outside world is not soundproof. One or the other will say something what you will hear doesn’t care about the outside world, that’s fair enough, it’s understandable because the team doesn’t want to be influenced by what happened.
“But sometimes an outside perspective helps. An outside perspective that you can take into account. Maybe the outside perspective makes sense and maybe at that particular point in time you get caught in a cocoon, ”he added.
India faces a must-win situation in their next Super 12 game against Afghanistan in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, even if their chances are hanging by a thread.
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