India coach Gambhir hails Jaiswal, stresses toss and dew factor in ODI win

India head coach Gautam Gambhir praised Yashasvi Jaiswal’s maiden ODI century in Visakhapatnam and highlighted the importance of toss and dew in the series win over South Africa. He also reflected on Shubman Gill’s absence and criticised outside comments on cricket matters

Visakhapatnam: India head coach Gautam Gambhir was all praise for opener Yashasvi Jaiswal, who scored his maiden ODI century and played a key role in India clinching the three-match one-day series against South Africa 2-1 here on Saturday.

In the post-match briefing, Gambhir said the quality that Jaiswal has is such that if he bats 30 overs, there is no doubt he will be batting close to 100. “He just played his fourth game. The moment he figures out which tempo to bat in the 50-over format, the sky is the limit for him,” he said.

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Gambhir said he was glad that India had won the first toss in ODIs during his tenure and that he was not aware about the number 20 or 21. “So, it felt like I have won the very first match in my tenure,” he said.

Reflecting on the dew factor and how crucial it was winning the toss in such conditions, Gambhir said when India were bowling second in Ranchi to defend 350, when there was dew, it was an incredible effort.

“So many times, we always tell bowlers that you cannot defend 350 or 360. But it is also important to look at the conditions because when you bowl with a wet ball it becomes very difficult, whether it is spinners or seamers,” he said.

“So, I believe that toss, especially this time of the year, matters more as compared to any other time. Look, it probably will not affect T20 much because both teams will get dew. But in one-day cricket, the team that bowls first does not get dew at all,” Gambhir said.

“When you go through a transition and you lose your captain Shubman Gill in that series, who is also the in-form batter in red-ball cricket, who has made around 1000 runs in the last seven Test matches – if you lose your captain against a team as good as this, then obviously it will be difficult to get the results, because there is not much experience in red-ball cricket. And the surprising thing is that no one even talked about this,” Gambhir said reflecting on the Test series.

“All the discussions were about wickets and I do not know what else. And people who have nothing to do with cricket have said things. An IPL team owner wrote about split coaching. So this is a surprising thing. It is very important for people to stay in their domain. Because if we do not go into someone’s domain, then they also do not have any right to come into our domain,” was Gambhir’s terse advice.

On Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, Gambhir said, “I have said it many times as well that they are world-class players. They are quality players in this format and their experience is really important in the dressing room.”

“And they are doing what they do. They have been doing it for such a long time for Indian cricket. Hopefully, they can continue doing the same, which is always going to be important in the white ball format and the 50-over format,” he said.