IPL 2018: Sunil Gavaskar finds it hard to understand the underutilisation of Dwayne Bravo the batsman

Dwayne Bravo has been a quality all-rounder for every team he has represented over the course of his illustrious career. He is back to representing the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the eleventh edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). In the very first game against the Mumbai Indians (MI), he made an impact with a match-winning knock of 68 runs off 30 balls, which helped CSK grab their maiden victory.

Even in Chennai’s contest against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), he turned out to be an apt foil for MS Dhoni on their way to the winning line. He has scored 118 runs at an average of 59 and a stupendous strike-rate of 196.66, which is currently the highest among all CSK batsmen in this season. Despite his impressive performances, he has mostly been sent out to bat lower down the order.

Gavaskar finds it hard to understand

The tactic has bewildered Sunil Gavaskar and he wrote about the same in his column for the Times of India (TOI). “His non-use of Dwayne Bravo at Eden as a batsman also was hard to understand as the Trinidadian has been in cracking form with both bat and ball than Ravindra Jadeja who is struggling a bit as could be seen with those two dropped catches off Sunil Narine,” Gavaskar mentioned.

Ambati Rayudu played some blinders at the top of the order and has been pivotal to many of their victories. However, ever since Faf du Plessis’ inclusion, he has been pushed down to number four in order to accommodate the South African batsman in the lineup. Gavaskar has also urged Dhoni to revisit the strategy as he feels that demoting Rayudu hasn’t helped his batting one bit.

“Dhoni will have to re-look the tactic of sending Faf du Plessis up the order for it means that the in-form batsman and orange cap holder Ambati Rayudu gets less overs to play. He also has to look for the big shots before getting set and that’s never easy,” the former Indian captain added.

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