“The Loss Should Rankle”: Sunil Gavaskar’s Grim Australia Series Loss Reminder To India As IPL 2023 Starts

Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar wants that the players of the national cricket team to keep in mind their most recent ODI series loss to Australia amid the “glitz and glamour” of the Indian Premier League. A three-match series between India and Australia preceded the start of the cash-rich T20 tournament. India won the first game by 5 wickets in Mumbai but they failed to continue the dominance. The guests bounced back with a 10-wicket victory in Visakhapatnam before they also won the series decider by 21 runs in Chennai.

Considering the ODI World Cup is slated to take place this year in India, the series loss would have hurt the morale of the team, besides raising some tough questions regarding the players’ form.

Gavaskar wants that the loss should “rankle” the team despite the players now getting busy in IPL 2023 which kicks off on March 31 in Ahmedabad.

“The glitz and glamour of the finest T20 league in the world, it is hoped, will not erase the memory of the series loss. The loss should rankle and make the players motivated to get their back on the opposition again,” wrote Gavaskar in his column for Sportstar.

While he lauded the bowling and fielding of the Indian team, Gavaskar pointed out that the batting needs improvement and that its quality has dipped down.

“What the loss showed was that the batting certainly needs to be looked at. If anything, Indian batting isn’t as reliable as earlier. The bowling has come on very well, and fielding overall has improved too,” wrote the former India batter.

“There are far too many batting collapses in all formats of the game, and that is a cause for concern. The openers lay down the foundation, but this is where the team has struggled in recent times,” Gavaskar added.