India’s bowling coach on Sunday blamed the toss for India’s early ouster from the ongoing T20 World Cup. Now, Harbhajan Singh and Sunil Gavaskar have rubbished Arun’s lame excuse. Both the players reckon toss was not the only reason for India’s exit from the marquee tournament. While Gavaskar felt India did not have enough runs on the board in the first place, Harbhajan cited the example of CSK who won the final despite batting first in similar conditions.
“If our batting had flourished as it did against Afghanistan when they scored 200 then the dew factor doesn’t come into play at all because the bowlers have a cushion of 30-40 runs already. So even if they were taken for a few extra runs with the wet ball, those 40 extra runs would make the difference,” Gavaskar told while speaking on Sports Tak.
“I heard Bharat Arun saying that had India won the toss, they could have done this and done that. All that is up for a later discussion. If you had though that you wanted to bowl first or bat first, well… didn’t Chennai Super Kings win the IPL after batting first? They did score 190, so you have to make runs. Let us accept the fact that we didn’t play well as we should have and we did not live up to expectations,” Harbhajan said on Sports Tak.
With Afghanistan losing to New Zealand, India will now play a dead rubber against Namibia on Monday, capping off a disappointing end to Virat Kohli’s T20 captaincy career.
It would be interesting to see the passion and hunger they show in the dead rubber. India would start favourites against Namibia, who would be hoping to give Kohli and Co a run for their money.
