'Chal phut, we don't want to talk to you' - Sunil Gavaskar's response to pitch debate among overseas players

Legendary batsman Sunil Gavaskar has once again weighed in on his views on the ongoing debate over the pitch and has opined that the Indian cricket fraternity and media should stop giving the overseas players so much importance. The pitches used in the ongoing Test series between India and England have invited severe criticism.

Several England players including Michael Vaughan, David Lloyd, Andrew Strauss, Alastair Cook criticised the pitch used for the third Test in Ahmedabad. Some former England players also asked the ICC to punish India after the game ended in two days. India thrashed the beleaguered visitors by 10 wickets to take an unassailable lead in the series.

With the pitch offering unpredictable spin right from day one, a total of thirty wickets fell in just over a day and a half. Despite winning the toss, England failed with the bat and managed to score only 112 in their first innings. They did well with the ball and bowled India for just 145. However, the visitors failed to get going with the bat again in the second innings.

India’s spinners wreaked havoc to bowl out England for just 81. Set a target of 49, India chased down the total with the utmost ease. The visiting batsmen had failed to do well in the second Test too as they were all out for 134 and 164.

Why do we give so much importance to overseas players? says Sunil Gavaskar

With the debate surrounding the pitch showing little signs of coming to an end, Sunil Gavaskar has urged the Indian cricket fraternity to stop giving importance to overseas players. The former India skipper also opined that the discussion should have been about the spinners’ good performance and not the pitch.

“Absolutely. The discussion should have been about batting and bowling. How can we call a pitch bad where the batsman were bowled and were dismissed lbw,” Sunil Gavaskar said on Star Sports when asked whether the discussion should have been about the performance of the spinners instead of the pitch.

Speaking further, he stated that the foreign media rarely give importance to Indian players and the Indian cricket fraternity should also do the same. Gavaskar also stated that one should start saying ‘get lost’ to the overseas players to teach them a lesson.

“Why do we give so much importance to overseas players? Why should we discuss about what they say? When India get out for 36 or when Kapil Dev, Gavaskar, Tendulkar, Sehwag say something, does their media say anything? Absolutely not. So why should we give them importance?

“Why don’t we tell them ‘chal phut (roughly translates to get lost), we don’t want to talk to you’.  This is what we should do. And when we will stop giving them importance, they will learn their lessons,” said Gavaskar.