JOIN USAfter playing a match-winning innings of 92 against Australia here on Sunday, Gautam Gambhir said India shouldn’t have taken the match into the last over.
“We should have finished this game in the 48th over. We shouldn’t have taken the game to the 50th over. That’s my personal observation. I know it’s always easier to talk when you are in the dressing room, but my personal observation is we shouldn’t have let this game go into the last over. Obviously, when you put yourself into that situation, someone has to pick his hand up and say I want to finish this game,” Gambhir said.
But the little Delhiite was in no mood to end the answer at that point. Perhaps, it was unintentional, but Gambhir’s next lines, in effect, had undermined Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s innings. “It’s the players in the middle who have to take a decision. I don’t know what was going through MS’s mind, but maybe he wanted to delay it, maybe he wanted someone else to take that responsibility.
“The most important shot of the match was made by him. He has always been a finisher, but that’s his game plan. He wants to delay it. Someone like me, if I was there I wouldn’t have taken it till the last over, because I always feel that any runs in the last over is far more pressure than finishing one or two overs before. But we are different human beings, we thing differently, we have different game plans,” he added.
On the rotation policy, Gambhir said names ultimately didn’t matter, and the team needed players who can deliver results. “For me, the best XI is a collection of 11 players who have the belief they can beat any opposition on the park. And this playing XI had the belief that they could beat Australia in Australia. For me, one or two individuals don’t make a difference. You don’t want names, you want people who can deliver. We have shown it, I think,” Gambhir said.
Missing out on a hundred didn’t bother Gambhir. “There has been a lot of talk about I am not getting a hundred. I have been getting consistent runs, and if I start getting desperate for a hundred it will only go away. I think as I have always believed any runs that can help the team win is far more important than scoring a hundred and being on the losing side.”