‘ONESIDED WIN EXPECTED BUT FIELDING NEEDS IMPROVEMENT’

Indian cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar was full of praise for India’s performance against Pakistan, echoing captain Virat Kohli’s stance that it was an all-round performance.

Speaking to NDTV, he described the encounter as a “damp squib” before adding “But that was in a way to be expected. Because Pakistan (are) short on experience, and short on class as far as their batting is concerned. Their bowling’s been okay, but as far as the batting is concerned… there is room for improvement.”

He was quick to talk about the huge gap between the teams right now.

“You can see it, the way India is beating them easily. They’re winning by comfortable margins and are hardly pressed. It certainly shows that there’s a big, big gap between India’s cricket and Pakistan’s cricket.”

He was happy with how openers Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan went about with their business, something that was key to India winning the previous edition of the tournament.

“They had a hard first half a dozen overs when they were watchful and it was needed to be watchful because the ball was doing something. But I think the fruits of the patience was seen towards the end when they started to open out and score pretty freely.”

Gavaskar did also have good things to say about skipper Kohli but heaped more praise on comeback man Yuvraj Singh.

“Look at the way he took the pressure off Virat Kohli. When he came in to bat, Virat was already at the crease for a while. But Yuvraj almost went past him with his batting, with the kind of shots that he played. And that actually freed up Virat to be able to play the shots all know he’s capable of.”