The Indian high order witnessed a bitter collapse within the opening Asia Cup 2023 sport towards Pakistan, with the highest three of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Shubman Gill departing with out contributing a lot with the bat. Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf, and Naseem Shah did fairly effectively with the ball till the pairing of Ishan Kishan and Hadik Pandya stabilised the Indian ship. Speaking of India’s top-order collapse, iconic batter Sunil Gavaskar stated that whereas Rohit and Virat received out to good deliveries, Shubman did not appear like himself within the sport.

“Both the batters (Rohit and Virat) could’ve used their feet a bit better. Rohit Sharma had a big gap between his bat and pad. Shreyas Iyer was a bit unlucky. That was a cracking hook shot but it went straight to the fielder. If the fielder could’ve been 5 meters left or right, it would’ve been a boundary. Shubman Gill, for some strange reason, looked very subdued. Didn’t look as if he was playing his natural game, seemed to be in some of uncertainty around him. That’s why he didn’t open his account for a long time and hardly looked the Shubman Gill that we know,” Gavaskar said on India Today.

While the trio of Rohit, Virat and Shubman have been disappointing, Gavaskar was filled with reward for Ishan and Hardik for the style during which they dealt with the stress and took India out of a difficult place.

“Yes, I think what he showed was that an opening batter can bat anywhere down the order. It’s not easy the other way around, where a middle-order batter can come in and open the batting. It’s not easy, but an opening batter can be accommodated anywhere down the order, and he brings a left-handed dimension to the Indian batting line. If you could look at the top four, they’re all right and then the left-hander comes in, so it makes it a little bit difficult for the bowlers.

“Plus, he is received this nice capability to speed up. He appears to be like very, very small, however he packs a punch. He hit a few massive sixes and the way in which he batted actually was spectacular as a result of typically he likes to get after the bowling. But he was watchful when it was wanted, acknowledged, realised what the state of affairs was,” Gavaskar said.

Hardik emerged as India’s top-scoring batter in the match, registering an 87-run knock in 90 balls as the Indian team put a respectable score of 266 runs on the board.

“There was, after all, Hardik Pandya on the different finish who captained the Gujarat Titans. So he is aware of precisely you already know what state of affairs, the way to modify his sport and he was guiding him. So that was a really, excellent partnership. Without that partnership, India would have 175 or 200,” said Gavaskar.