Ex Indian Cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar praised Australia for exposing 'Little Chinks' of India's armour to win the World Cup title
Former cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar feels that the Australia cricket team beautifully exposed “little chinks” in the batting line-up of team India to crush them by six wickets and win an unprecedented sixth World Cup title.
The “lack of batting depth” in the absence of premier all-rounder Hardik Pandya was felt sorely in the World Cup summit clash in Ahmedabad as India lost half of their inside 36th over to set Australia a modest 241 in the big final.
Manjrekar said, “India felt the pressure of not having depth; you know, those little chinks in India’s armour came to the fore.”
Pandya pulled out of the tournament following a twisted ankle in India’s fourth-league match against Bangladesh, as India were forced to ring in two changes, Suryakumar Yadav and Mohammed Shami, for their remaining matches.
While the inclusion of Shami was a big boost to the bowling attack, Suryakumar continued to have a woeful show in the ODI format. Suryakumar managed just 106 runs in seven innings at an average of 17.67 and a strike-rate of 100.95.
Without mentioning any name, Manjrekar said, “The batting depth wasn’t there, and you saw the way KL Rahul played the bulk of the innings with the knowledge that there isn’t much batting to come.”
He further said, “Well, India had certain limitations that they had covered beautifully throughout the tournament, with Jadeja at number 7 and their batting finishing at number 6.”
While continuing his statement, he said, “Just imagine this game was a league match between Sri Lanka and India; would India have taken that risk? Maybe yes, that is where perhaps temperament comes in, and maybe, if it was a league match, India would have played differently.”