India Vs New Zealand: Gautam Gambhir: Defence must be foundation of Test batting | Cricket News

MUMBAI: How did India get bamboozled by New Zealand spinners? Ask head coach Gautam Gambhir and he says it all “comes down to T20 cricket”.
Speaking on the eve of the third Test at the Wankhede Stadium, Gambhir didn’t mince words when he spoke at length about how playing T20s has led to batters’ downfall when it came to honing their defensive technique and the ability to play with soft hands in the longest format.
India’s batters were at sixes and sevens against Black Caps’ left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner, who finished with match figures of 13/157 in the second Test in Pune. That was the first time the 32-year-old had taken a five-wicket haul in his 29-match Test career.
“It has a lot to do with T20 cricket. When you are used to muscling the ball, you end up forgetting the soft hands…stuff which used to happen eight or 10 years back. That is why I say that a complete cricketer is one who would play the T20 format successfully as well as Tests. One can adapt his game. That is what growth is. Growth is not only about hitting the ball in the stands. It’s also about batting sessions on a turning track, where you know that you will not be able to hit in the stands, but you will be able to rotate better. For that, I think the foundation is very important,” said Gambhir.

“You see people like Virat (Kohli) and all the great players who’ve done well in Tests for a long period of time. They’ve always had the defence. The foundation of your batting in Tests must be defence and then you start from there. It has a lot to do with playing on flat wickets as well,” he added while continuously talking about batters making a conscious effort to improve their defence.
He felt that the issue has hampered teams around the world and as “more T20 cricket is played, people will start defending lesser”.
He wants the team under him to adapt to different situations in Test cricket. Yes, there will be situations when you must go out all guns blazing—like Kanpur against Bangladesh. But there is also the need to adopt a cautious approach when things aren’t going their way.
“We should be able to adapt, we should be a side that can get 400 in a day and also be able to bat two days. Test cricket can’t be played in a one single manner. It’s batting sessions as well. If we can start to learn how to play sessions and the kind of quality we have and if we end up playing four sessions, we will have a lot of runs on the board. Then we have got the bowling attack to take 20 wickets. Test cricket is a format which is testing in every way. Your technique gets tested differently (in different situations). You need a lot of ability and mental toughness to be a successful Test player.”
The drooping shoulders and the grim faces after the defeat in Pune showed how much the series defeat has affected the team. Gambhir said that it’s good that the team is “hurting”.
“Every time you lose a game, it should hurt and that hurt will make us better. What’s wrong in being in that position especially for the youngsters. I’m sure they’re going to push themselves to keep getting better because that is exactly what we want them to be, pushing themselves every day to be better cricketers and to do something special. Because if we have results like what we had in Kanpur, then we might as well have results like this and take that hurt and keep moving forward.”
Gambhir also stressed on the need to identify players who are “solid red ball cricketers”.
“At the moment it’s difficult to answer this question, but going forward, obviously we will have to identify players who are solid red ball cricketers because ultimately to get the results you will have to work very hard for three, four, five days,” he said.