India need a good start from their openers against England, reveals Sunil Gavaskar

Virat Kohli & Co. have known that the English were going to be a tough task to overcome before his squad departed to England for a long and hard foreign tour. They got off to a good start in the first T20I as Kuldeep Yadav wrecked havoc in the batting line-up which helped India to an eight wicket win. But England pulled one back in the three-match series as an Alex Hales inspired innings led the Britishers to their first win of the tour and also leveled the T20I series 1-1. 

But Indian opener Sunil Gavaskar asserted that the visitors needed a strong start at the top of the innings for the rest of the tour if they were to do well against Eoin Morgan & Co. Indian openers, Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan have endured a tough start to the UK segment of the tour and have failed to cross the 50-run mark in both their innings so far.

"India need a good start from their openers and they haven’t got it in the first two games and so that’s putting pressure on those coming after to bat. If they can avoid losing wickets in the powerplay over they give themselves a good chance to put up a good score or even chase a big target. Of course all that depends on the toss so let’s hope Kohli calls it right at Bristol.

"India lost their first three wickets in a heap including that of the previous game centurion KL Rahul, to a forgettable shot but the skipper along with the experienced Suresh Raina stitched a partnership to steady the innings. Still it was never going to be enough even after MS Dhoni and Hardik Pandya smashed debutant Jake Ball’s final over of the innings for 22 runs. That took the total to the average score at Cardiff," Gavaskar wrote in his column for TOI.

The experienced left-handed batsman also wrote about the changing trend in modern cricket which showed that team’s these days have developed a penchant for chasing a target rather than batting first.

"When two well matched teams square up in a T20 game in conditions that are not going to change over 40 overs, then invariably the team that wins the toss opts to chase knowing that it is a lot easier to do so than setting a target. If there is going to be no dew or the overhead conditions remain the same then it’s always better to field first.

"You know what the asking rate is and can pace the innings accordingly. On the other hand, the team batting first has little option but to try and smash the ball from the word go, as they don’t know what a safe total would be. In attempting that if they lose early wickets especially in the first six overs of field restrictions then it becomes hard to put up a challenging target," added Gavaskar.