Sunil Gavaskar slams Hardik Pandya and Ravichandran Ashwin as Virat Kohli's men lose the series
Virat Kohli led Indian cricket team suffered a 60-run loss to England in the fourth Test at Southampton and thus registered the five-Test match series. Former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar slammed the Indian team for its over-dependency on Indian skipper Virat Kohli.
It is the second successive overseas Test series loss for Virat Kohli as skipper after the 2-1 defeat in South Africa earlier this year.
Sunil Gavaskar cited that " You cannot call Ashwin and Pandya all-rounders. Even though Ashwin has four hundred, he hasn't shown that he can score runs outside India. And Kohli cannot score runs for you always. He is a human only."
"When you go in with five batsmen then you are bound to be in such a situation where you rely so much only on one player, Virat Kohli to get you the big hundreds. He can't do it every time, he's human," Gavaskar was quoted as saying by India Today.
India should be looking to make some changes their playing XI for the last match. However, Sunil Gavaskar felt that Indian skipper has a long way to go.
Virat Kohli retained his number one spot in the latest International Cricket Council (ICC) Test batsmen rankings with a career-high 937 rating points, despite the defeat in the fourth Test.
Indian Squad:
Shikhar Dhawan, Lokesh Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli(c), Ajinkya Rahane, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant(w), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah
England Squad:
Joe Root (c), Alastair Cook, Keaton Jennings, Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler, Oliver Pope, Moeen Ali, Adil Rashid, Sam Curran, James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Chris Woakes, Ben Stokes, James Vince.
First published: 4 September 2018, 13:27 IST