Virat Kohli should pick Ravindra Jadeja instead of Hanuma Vihari: Gautam Gambhir

In the 2008-09 tour of New Zealand, he had played a marathon knock of 137 runs in 436 balls in Napier to draw the Test match for India. He had followed it up with another hundred in the next game in Wellington to see his team win the series 1-0. Former India batsman Gautam Gambhir opened up on India’s ongoing tour of New Zealand which has turned out to be less favorable for the visitors. The 38-year-old cricketer-turned-parliamentarian advised India captain Virat Kohli to make a crucial change in the second and final Test in Christchurch starting Saturday.

India were thrashed by 10 wickets following a listless show with the bat in the first Test at Basin Reserve in Wellington last week. With 60 points at stake, India will need to improve their performance by quite a few notches in the upcoming Test and that calls for a better show from both the batters and bowlers. The defeat in Wellington was India’s first in the ICC Test Championship and it came after seven consecutive wins.

‘India should play five bowlers’ – Gautam Gambhir

In his column for Times of India, Gambhir suggested inclusion of spinner-all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja in India’s playing XI at Hagley Oval, saying that they should go in with five bowlers in a Test match irrespective of the surface and Jadeja should be playing in the place of Hanuma Vihari.

“Game wise, I think Kohli should play five bowlers. He should play Ravindra Jadeja in place of Hanuma Vihari whether the wicket is flat or a green top,” Gambhir, the BJP MP from East Delhi, wrote.

India played six specialist batsmen in Wellington and went in with four bowlers. Ravi Ashwin was the only spinner in the side while Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Shami were the seamers. While Ishant and Ashwin got eight wickets among them, Bumrah and Shami returned as a disappointment with just one wicket in the match.

Though the wicket offered very little assistance to the spinners, yet former New Zealand cricketer Scott Styris also felt the visitors would have favoured them by including Jadeja in the playing XI who could help bottle up one end, giving Kohli that much freedom to rotate the seamers at the other end.