Shastri wants India to aim for a positive start in Australia
Shastri believes India must target a fast start to the series in Perth to keep their World Test Championship hopes alive.
Veteran Indian cricketers Virender Sehwag and Sourav Ganguly have slammed head coach Ravi Shastri after India’s second consecutive Test series defeat.
India lost the ongoing five-match Test series after they were thrashed by 60 runs at Southampton on Sunday. England have now taken an unassailable lead of 3-1.
India’s series defeat against England had come just after a month Ravi Shastri had said, “This team has the potential to be one of the best travelling teams in the world.”
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Taking a dig at Shastri, Virender Sehwag told India TV, “The best travelling teams are made by performances on the ground and not by sitting in the dressing room and talking about it,” adding, “You can talk big however much you want but unless the bat does the talking, and the ball does the talking, you cannot have a good travelling team.”
Former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly has also slammed the Indian batting line-up for their gloomy show in England. The 46-year-old also believes head coach Ravi Shastri along with batting coach Sanjay Bangar should be held accountable for India’s performances.
“Regarding Ravi Shastri, he has to be held accountable for the results along with Sanjay Bangar regarding why only one batsman is performing whereas others seem to have taken backward steps. Unless these questions are answered an overseas series win in the three countries looks impossible for India,” Ganguly told IndiaTV.
In the fourth Test match, India were bowled out at 180 runs while following a target of 245. Talking about India’s performance, Ganguly said, Indian batting has taken backward steps as they are not able to chase down moderate scores.
“This batting lineup hasn’t been making runs for a long time now. If you look at India’s overseas performances from 2011 until now, they have lost every big series. When Virat Kohli is at the crease it seems that he is playing against totally different bowlers as compared to when the other batsmen are batting. I believe that the batting ability of the current players has gone down,” he added.
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