After losing the third Test of the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy, former India head coach Ravi Shastri didn’t shy away from calling the Rohit Sharma-led side ‘overconfident’. It took an interesting turn when the Indian skipper hit back in the press conference ahead of the fourth Test and called Shastri an outsider. However, Shastri’s criticism of the skipper’s decisions didn’t end there.
After India’s struggles with the ball on the first day of the fourth Test at Ahmedabad, Shastri once again took a dig at the Indian team and questioned the captain on the necessity of taking a new ball towards the end of the day’s play.
“I think India lost the plot last night. Taking the new ball was not the right thing to do considering Umesh is 35, Shami is not getting any younger. They had bowled a lot. They were getting tired. A shorter burst with two overs is fine. But taking the new ball as early as that let Australia get away,” Shastri said on commentary during Day two as quoted by Hindustan Times.
“As a captain, things have moved fast during his tenure. He has been captaining on turning tracks where things get over in three days. So, this is a big learning curve. When you play on a surface like this where wickets are hard to come, the batting is good. As a captain, you’ve got to put your thinking cap on, and marshall your resources. It’s one thing captaining in India, one thing captaining overseas and one thing captaining in India on good tracks like these. He has all the skills, this is the exposure that he needs,” the 60-year-old stated.
