Rohit Sharma-led Indian men’s cricket team players produced a super show with the bat in the second Test of the recently concluded two-match series against Bangladesh in Kanpur last week and went on to win the match, two days of which were completely washed out due to rain and wet outfield. India’s aggressive batting approach in the second Test earned massive praise for Rohit Sharma & Co. from all corners of the world, but few former greats and experts of the game credited England for it by mentioning Bazball as inspiration behind India’s aggressive intent.
In his latest column for The Hindu, Gavaskar, who was the first batter in Test cricket’s history to score 10,000 runs, took a savage dig at former those experts without mentioning anyone’s name and said that old powers want credit for India’s approach.
“Not surprisingly, the Indian approach drew reactions from the old powers, who, as usual, wanted to take credit for it. That’s how certain parts of the world work in everyday life, too—taking credit where none is really due,” Gavaskar wrote.
“Sadly, while the batting was thrilling and refreshing, the names given to the approach were the same old, same old. Just as any scandal is now called this-gate or that-gate after the Watergate scandal over 50 years ago in the United States of America, this Indian batting approach was labelled this-ball and that-ball after the term “Bazball” was coined for the England team’s batting attitude. It was called this because “Baz” is the nickname of their coach, Brendon McCullum from New Zealand, who batted exactly as his team is doing—throwing caution to the winds in an attempt to score runs.”
He credited Indian skipper Rohit Sharma for changing Indian cricket with his aggressive batting approach at the top of the order.
“While one paper called the Indian batting “Bossball” because the captain or “boss” of the team, Rohit, had shown the way, some from the old powers referred to it as “Gamball” after the Indian coach, Gautam Gambhir. While the England batting approach changed completely under the new regime of Ben Stokes and McCullum, we have seen over the last couple of years that Rohit has been batting like this and encouraging his team to do so as well,” he said.
“Gambhir has only been coaching for a couple of months, so attributing this approach to him is foot-licking of the highest quality. Gambhir himself hardly ever batted in this fashion like McCullum used to do. If any credit is due, it is solely to Rohit and nobody else,” he added.
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