Former Indian cricketer Robin Uthappa has jumped to the defence of India head coach Gautam Gambhir amid the backlash that he has been getting over the loss in IND vs SA 1st Test. The coach’s selections, strategies and the kind of pitch that he wanted at the Eden Gardens has come under fire after the hosts were handed their fourth defeat at home within a year. Uthappa claimed that it was wrong to blame Gambhir for India’s loss.
Gambhir gets backing from Uthappa
In a video on his YouTube channel, Uthappa claimed that it wasn’t like head coach Gambhir was playing out in the middle with the rest of the team for him to be blamed for India’s loss. He said that it was important to look at the overall scenario rather, adding that when legends like Dravid could be trolled, then Gambhir was also vulnerable.
“I saw a comment yesterday suggesting that I was defending GG. Yaar, coach thodi jaake khel raha hai andar. We are looking at the results and blaming a coach, but you have to look at the overall scenario. When they criticised Rahul Dravid, it didn’t make sense to me. Scoring 20-30 thousand international runs is not easy. So, if he can be trolled, anyone can be trolled,” Uthappa said.
Gambhir came under fire after the IND vs SA 1st Test, especially for his remarks stating that there were no demons in the Eden Gardens pitch. Such was a turning surface prepared for the game that the contest ended in 3 days, with India losing 12 out of 18 wickets to spin. Uthappa said that curators and the ground staff were reprimanded for preparing poor pitches for domestic games but not for international matches.
“You are not encouraged to prepare turning tracks. Even if you are going to prepare a progressively turning track, where there would be a lot of turn on Day 3 and Day 4, you can actually develop batters who are equipped to play well against spin. We have been discouraged from doing that in the past 10 years, and you are taking the players to task for not playing spin well. How will they play if they don’t play matches in those conditions?,” Uthappa added.
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