Not having Ashwin and Jadeja has weakened India’s bowling: Sunil Gavaskar

Team India opted to rest both their key spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja for the five-match ODI series given the fact that they have a huge work load to manage this season. That gave the other spinners an opportunity to play but at the same time, they haven’t been as effective against the Kiwis which has hurt the team’s cause and the 2-2 score line definitely suggests that the visitors have been competitive in the ODI series after a dismal show in the Tests.

Former Indian captain and the little master Sunil Gavaskar ahead of the series decider at Vishakhapatnam said that the team has missed both Ashwin and Jadeja which has weakened the bowling department of the team. While talking to NDTV he said, “When one of your top bowlers like Hardik Pandya is bowling just five overs and a non-regular bowler like Kedar Jadhav has to bowl eight overs, then you are in trouble. India can’t afford to leak runs at the top of the attack,”

“When two of your specialist bowlers do not bowl their full quota of overs, then that is a worrying sign. Not having Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja have weakened the bowling attack considerably. On Indian pitches, they were very lethal,” he added.

Indian limited-overs skipper MS Dhoni who hasn’t been at his best as a finisher of late has been batting higher up at number 4 in this series in order to give himself some more at the crease.

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“When Dhoni has to bat at No. 4 and there is no faith in No. 5 and 6, then India need to worry considerably. You can’t depend on Virat Kohli bailing you out every time. It looks like if Virat fails the others are not being able to handle the pressure,” Gavaskar said when talking about Dhoni’s batting position.