Former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar has expressed his opinion by saying that there should have been a fifth bowler in the Indian squad to ease off the pressure on the shoulders of their four attacking bowlers.
The visitors scored a whopping 451 runs on their part and the Indian batsmen, slowly and steadily, reached the milestone and went on to give a lead of 152 runs, courtesy a fine partnership of Pujara and Saha. The ties were shared in the end, hence, the conquistador will be decided in the fourth and final test at Dharamshala.
Gavaskar, on his part, has said that the Indian squad should have featured a fifth bowler in the third test:
“India’s batting has benefited from the fact that you have somebody like (Ravichandran) Ashwin, somebody like a Wriddhiman Saha at No 6, 7 and 8. And if Jadeja can come score runs as he has done in this series then I think it really makes sense to go back to five bowlers and six batsmen theory,” Gavaskar told NDTV.
“Today clearly India missed a fifth bowler. I am not saying a fifth bowler would have ripped through the opposition but he would have given just that little bit of break to our hard working fast bowlers. Both Umesh (Yadav) and Ishant (Sharma) bowled their hearts out,” he said.
The Aussie skipper, while talking about the upcoming game, said that the visitors are carrying an upper hand and the momentum will be with them.
“If there’s anything called momentum, it’s with us at the moment,” he told a news conference after the match. “India coming today would have expected to bowl us out. I’m sure they’re hurting a little bit in their change room. If there’s anything with momentum in cricket, it’s probably on our side at the minute. Its 1-1 all and we have the decider in Dharamsala, which is really exciting.”
However, the 67-year-old Gavaskar was quite vocal about his opinion and went on to say that it is the home side who are in a fine momentum right now.
“I think the momentum is still with India because they are ones who came back, having batted second and chasing 450 plus score. They might not have bowled Australia out but I think the momentum definitely is still with India,” Gavaskar said.
“At the end of the day momentum doesn’t matter much because after the Bangalore win we thought India has the momentum but things didn’t go well. So what happens on the day is important.”
Since the Dharamshala pitch assists the fast bowlers, it is expected that both teams will go with three pacers. India, in particular, are expected to drop Karun Nair to make way for either Mohammed Shami or Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
Even though Shami is not in the squad, Indian skipper Virat Kohli has suggested that he could be selected for the ultimate game.
