Sunil Gavaskar was not at all pleased with India captain Rohit Sharma's tactics of not giving the ball to Ravichandran Ashwin for almost the entire first hour of Day 2 of the third Test against Australia in Indore. Ashwin, India's second-highest wicket-taker in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy was introduced into the attack only a few minutes before the drinks break. By that time, Peter Handcomb and Cameron Green had batted well to stretch Australia's first-innings lead over 75.
Gavaskar was not convinced by Rohit's ploy of perhaps paying more attention to the match-ups instead of the quality of the cricketer. Gavaskar said because Handscomb and Green are two right-handers, Rohit started with pacer Mohammed Siraj and left-spinner Ravindra Jadeja. The former was replaced by Axar Patel and Ashwin, an off-spinner, was kept waiting.
"I don't understand this too much focus on the match-up thing. Because there were two right-handers in the crease, Ashwin wasn't brought on till the last over before the drinks break. Because of those match-ups, the two left-armers bowled, then what happened? Who gets the breakthrough? Ravichandran Ashwin. He gets the wicket of Handscomb. He is a top player, he is going to get wickets, doesn't matter if it's a right-hander or a left-hander. He is a great bowler. Ashwin has 450-plus wickets and he should have been given the ball a lot earlier," Gavaskar said on Star Sports in the post-lunch session.
Ashwin immediately got the results for India in his second over of the day by getting the wicket of Handscomb and breaking the partnership. The veteran off-spinner who attained the No.1 ranking on Wednesday, then accounted for Alex Carey and Nathan Lyon as India got six Australian wickets for just 11 runs to bowl them out for 197. In between Ashwin's wickets, pacer Umesh Yadav got three wickets with his reverse swing as India stayed in the game.
Continuing his critical analysis of Rohit's decision, Gavaskar asked the Indian team management about this treatment of Ashwin despite him being the country's leading spinner.
"You don't send a No.7 ahead of a No.3 just because he is maybe not good against spin or good against pace. You send the No.3 because he is good, he is a top batter. So what is this thing about bowlers? And Why does this happen regularly to Ashwin? That extra 20 runs could have been saved," said the former India captain.
(With inputs from agencies)