NEWS
Follow UsFormer India head coach Ravi Shastri questioned the Indian side’s tactics with the ball in the fourth Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), expressing disbelief over skipper Rohit Sharma’s reluctance to use spin despite picking an extra spinner at the cost of a specialist batter.
For the ongoing fourth Test, India replaced Shubman Gill with Washington Sundar, opting to play an extra spinner after assessing the conditions. Yet Sundar wasn’t introduced until the 52nd over of Australia’s innings, by which point the hosts were already 171/2.
Overall, Australia batted 122.4 overs, but Sundar only bowled 15 of those overs. Together, he and Nitish Reddy bowled just 22 overs, which was 6.4 fewer than Jasprit Bumrah himself.
At the lunch break on the second day, Shastri questioned the visitors’ tactics.
"India ran out of ideas. Bowling was pretty ordinary. Spin wasn't used as much as it should have,” Shastri said on air, reported Hindustan Times.
“It took 40 overs for Sundar to bowl. Why did you play two spinners? What was the need if you don't trust them?.”
Meanwhile, Sunil Gavaskar, on commentary, lashed out at Akash Deep for ‘wasting’ the second new ball by bowling either too wide or too straight.
In the five overs he bowled in the first hour of Day 2, the right-armer conceded 30 runs without taking a wicket. He let both Steven Smith and Pat Cummins get away, and that set the tone for the remainder of the session.
"Pretty ordinary blowing. If you have to bowl a bouncer, you get it around the helmet's badge and not around the waist. I'm very disappointed, I'm sorry. This new ball has been wasted. Aakash Deep has been all over the place. He has wasted the new ball by bowling way outside off stump. The Indians have also been sloppy in the field,” Gavaskar said.
After resuming day two on 311/6, Australia added 163 more runs to their tally. Smith brought up his 34th Test century, while Cummins fell one short of a fifty.
