Harbhajan Singh has defended Shubman Gill’s performance in the ongoing Border Gavaskar Trophy. Despite Gill’s struggle to perform in the third Test, with scores of 21 and 5 in both innings, Harbhajan Singh believes that batters cannot solely rely on defense to survive on the Indore pitch. Gill had been given a chance to replace KL Rahul in the playing XI, but he failed to capitalize on this opportunity.
HIS APPROACH WAS RIGHT: HARBHAJAN
During the first two days of the Indore pitch, a staggering 30 wickets fell, and India’s batters, except for Cheteshwar Pujara, failed to put up a fight. In the second innings, Gill attempted a big shot and lost his wicket, but his approach found support from former India spinner Harbhajan Singh.
Harbhajan said on Star Sports:
“See, the game plan is simple here. You can’t survive on this pitch with defence. Pujara was using his feet throughout his innings. If you’re thinking that you can wait out for a spell and score runs later, it won’t work. Even if you’re playing on 70-80 on this pitch, you can get out with just one odd delivery.”
“You have to look out for the opportunity to score runs. You need to see where you can get a four. Shubman wanted to go for a six, and when you consider the pitch condition here, his approach was right because you can’t defend on this pitch for long,”
Harbhajan further added.
On the first day of the third Test, India decided to bat first but only managed to score 109 runs as Matthew Kuhnemann, the left-arm spinner of Australia, took his first five-wicket haul. In the second innings, off-spinner Nathan Lyon grabbed eight wickets for the second time in his Test career, dismissing India for 163 and putting Australia on the brink of a win at the Holkar Stadium on Thursday.
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