SA vs IND: I Can’t Accept That As A Former South African, That Always… – Shaun Pollock Lambasts South African Batters Over Their Approach Against India

Former South African pacer Shaun Pollock launched a scathing attack on the South African batters over their batting approach against India in the 1st ODI International on Sunday. Opting to bat first, the Proteas side got dismissed in the blink of an eye for just 116 runs in 27.3 overs.

On Sunday, South Africa was soundly defeated in the opening ODI of a three-match series against India. South Africa were defeated by India’s terrific bowling at Wanderers, despite the absence of important players such as Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, and Ravindra Jadeja.

Former captain Shaun Pollock lambasted South Africa’s batting approach in the first game, challenging the need for a modern-day strategy of an attacking kind of cricket while the team was losing wickets at regular intervals and believes that they could simply defend the ten overs rather than taking an attacking approach.

“Try and work their way out of the situation and get themselves into trouble and get bowled up very cheaply. And you can’t do that. I mean, I can’t accept that. The modern player will say, oh, you’ve got to be positive, all that nonsense. I can’t accept that as a former South African, that always when you get put into pressure, you just fall down,” Shaun Pollock said.

“For all honesty, what you could have been done there today is you could have just blocked out ten overs. You couldn’t have scored a run for ten overs just to absorb some pressure and then you could have continued to bat and they would have posted 200 and something on the board,” Shaun Pollock added.

South Africa crashed to a record-low score of 116 against India at the Wanderers on Sunday, with Arshdeep Singh taking five wickets and Avesh Khan taking four. It is South Africa’s lowest ODI score at home. In response, India needed only 16.3 overs to reach the mark.

Debutant southpaw Sai Sudharsan’s (55*) and Shreyas Iyer’s (52) blistering performances helped the visitors take a 1-0 series lead with an eight-wicket triumph.

T20 Contracts Makes Players Take A Lot Less Responsibility – Sunil Gavaskar

Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar stated that the senior South African cricketer’s concern stems from having too many options and remarks meant that modern-day players may compete in T20 tournaments all around the world throughout the year.

“Back in my day, we didn’t have too many options. If we failed, we had to go back to club cricket. And there was no money in club cricket back then. Today, players have options. You play for your country, you play T20 leagues… you still can put the food on the table. And therefore there is this tendency to go bang-bang”.

“They will still have some T20 contract somewhere, if not with the IPL, then some league or the other. That makes players take a lot less responsibility. They try to take the easy way out, which is to go ‘bang-bang’. If they succeed, great. If they don’t, the team is 116 all out. So what? There will be another match two days later,” Sunil Gavaskar said.