Former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir has always been at the forefront in keeping his voice related to cricket. This time he backed Indian captain Virat Kohli and his team by taking a dig at critics and media after they slammed the team for their poor show in New Zealand.
Indian team toured New Zealand to play five-match T20I series, three-match ODI series, and two-match Test series. The visitors had clean-swept Kiwi’s in T20I series whereas they were whitewashed by New Zealand in the ODI and Test series respectively.
The tour saw the drop in the performance of Virat Kohli. He could not touch the mark of twenty in the four innings of Tests while he only scored a fifty in the whole tour.
All in all, in the ODI series, he scored only 75 runs while in Tests, he scored 38 runs. It was one of the worst tours of his career history. For which, he was heavily criticized by the fans.
Gautam Gambhir lashed out at the critics of Virat Kohli:
Gambhir, in his column for TOI, expressed his disappointment in the way Kohli and his team were targetted after their disappointing show against New Zealand.
“I was once again disappointed by the way critics went after Virat Kohli and his men after the 2-0 Test series loss against New Zealand. Everything was questioned. Selection choices, the atmosphere in the dressing room, Jasprit Bumrah’s sharpness, or the lack of it, and even Virat Kohli’s eyesight,” wrote the 38-year-old.
He continued, “Prithvi Shaw was touring New Zealand in India colours for the first time. Mayank Agarwal is not too old in the piece. In the absence of Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan, the dependency on Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane were way too much. In the end, the conditions proved way too challenging.”
Further, he also added the areas where India was lacking behind. India missed Ishant Sharma’s experience while he also criticised the management for not retaining KL Rahul in the Test squad.
Meanwhile, India will try to get back in the form in the ongoing ODI series against South Africa which has started from 12th March.