India head coach Gautam Gambhir once again sympathised with his bowlers and asked for a balance between bat and ball. His latest comments came in the aftermath of the 2nd T20I against the West Indies in Ranchi on Friday, where the visitors chased down 250 rather comfortably. The ball turned into a soap—in a manner of speaking—due to heavy dew, which hurt the Indian bowlers a lot. Shai Hope, the Windies captain, led from the front, hitting an unbeaten 102 off 45 balls and helping his side chase down the daunting target with six wickets in hand and nine balls to spare.
The West Indies lost Kamil Pooran and Shimron Hetmyer in the opening over of the chase as Mayank Yadav rattled the opposition with his pace. Rovman Powell then featured in a 53-run stand with Hope. However, it was Hope and Sherfane Rutherford’s 120-run partnership for the fourth wicket that kept the Windies ahead of the asking rate and in the end, Hope and Romario Shephard (34*) got the job done to make it 1-1 in the five-match series.
Earlier, after the 2nd ODI last month, where India chased down 406 against the West Indies, Gambhir, without mincing his words, had called out the flat conditions in Guwahati. “It was not cricket. Just batting.”
When on Friday, the former Indian opening batter was asked whether the team management would want to see a better contest between bat and ball, he responded: “Who doesn’t want a good competition between bat and ball? Of course. What you want, we also want. If you only want to see sixes and fours, we want to see that too. If you want an even contest, then we also want an even contest, because bowlers are our bowlers too, right?”
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“They aren’t foreign bowlers; their careers are also at stake. They also worked hard to sit in this dressing room; it’s not like they didn’t work hard. They have also worked hard. So if there is an even competition, it will be good, and better cricket will be seen,” he added at the post-match press conference.
‘We want to keep improving’
Gambhir, however, refused to admit that the toss played a crucial role, saying teams need to figure out how to bowl when dew sets in and there’s little to no purchase from the pitch. Earlier, the West Indies had won the toss and opted to field. India then posted 249/5 as Sanju Samson (82), Ishan Kishan (43), Shreyas Iyer (40), Tilak Varma (44*), all starred with the bat for the hosts.
“We are a world-champion team, so we want to keep improving. And obviously, these are tough conditions to bowl; we know that obviously, flat wickets, with the dew, obviously it’s tough, but we need to figure out a way to try and stop the opposition, especially when they lost two wickets in the first over, and three in the first six,” said Gambhir.
“Obviously, it was tough. But again, credit to West Indies, the way Shai Hope batted. We know that they are world-class batters, especially in this format, so obviously it was tough. But we’re going to keep improving. The bottom line is that we could not defend 250. They batted extremely well. They deserved to win, and we still have a lot of work to do. When you’re playing against dangerous teams like the West Indies, we need to figure out how to defend, especially when you lose the toss,” he added.