Gambhir, who has been quite critical of Kohli’s tactical acumen as captain, felt the difference between the two sides so far was how Australian captain Aaron Finch handled his most successful pacemaker Josh Hazlewood in the first two ODIs that the hosts won. easily.
“I find it difficult to understand that if you have a bowler of Jasprit Bumrah’s caliber and you only give him two overs up front. It is not a tactical error, but a tactical error,” Gambhir said on ESPNCricinfo’s ‘Match Day Hindi’.
A spell of more than five would have allowed Bumrah and Mohammed Shami to at least attempt to lift two windows in advance.
“… I was expecting Bumrah and Shami to cast spells of five on each in advance and try to get a couple of wickets each. So, I don’t think there is any captain in world cricket who would give Jasprit Bumrah two overs with the new ball, “said Gambhir as is.
With the three best Australian hitters: Aaron Finch, David warner and Steve Smith – surprisingly at the same time, Gambhir feels that if any bowler had a chance to get the trio out, it had to be Bumrah.
“Now Finch, Warner and Smith, the top three are in top form and who has the best chance to take their ground? It’s Jasprit Bumrah
“… and you give him 2 overs and you bring him back after 10 overs, when the ball is a little old and heats up and you expect him to have ground in these conditions. He is human too.”
He then cited the example of how Finch used Hazlewood in the first two games.
“In game one, Finch gave him a six over spell and in game two a first five over and six over spell when Starc had a bad day. Hazlewood has been the featured bowler.”
Gambhir was impressed with the way Australia’s sixth bowling option (the combination of Marcus Stoinis and Glenn Maxwell in first and Moses Henriques and Maxwell in second) controlled the process.
“It happened in the first game as well. In the first game, Marcus Stoinis had about 25 runs in 6 overs that he threw and that was what Henriques did in the second game. So that’s the difference you had.
“So if your sixth pitcher can give 6 to 7 overs, then you don’t need to play a front-line player who’s having a bad day like Mitchell Starc.
“Imagine if Hardik hadn’t lost those startles, what kind of pressure would have been on Shami and Navdeep Saini,” he said.
While Virat Kohli, with close to 11,500 races and 43 hundreds, has a staggering record, Gambhir feels that Smith, for all practical reasons, is not far behind, even if the numbers suggest otherwise.
“I don’t think there is much of a difference between Kohli and Smith. If you go by the numbers, Kohli always gave better numbers than Smith, but if you look at his record (Smith), in the previous five or seven ODIs, he has had three hundred, so the difference is not much.
“He’s scored 62 hundred balls in a row. Obviously you’ll call Kohli, the best ODI player by the numbers, but there’s not much of a difference between him (Smith) and Kohli.”
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