Sunil Gavaskar Wants Team India to do a Narendra Modi on Australia Tour

With former Australian great Glenn McGrath predicting a 4-0 thrashing for India, Sunil Gavaskar has subtly pointed out what could be India's greatest weakness on the tour Down Under - bowling. Gavaskar was part of Narendra Modi's delegation to Australia earlier this week and has been simply charmed by the Prime Minister's ability to win the accolades.

While batting remains India's biggest strength, the ability to take 20 Australian wickets will be key if India have to improve their poor overseas record. The Indian attack is relatively inexperienced with the injury-prone Ishant Sharma the most experienced paceman in the squad.

"The Indian team has a tough tour ahead, but if they are struggling to get wickets they should request the services of the Prime Minister. He would bowl over the Aussies in a jiffy like he has done on his just concluded visit," said Gavaskar, who is expected to be commentating on the upcoming series.

This was the first time three legendary cricketers - Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and VVS Laxman - accompanied an Indian Prime Minister on a diplomatic tour. With the Test series coming up and the ICC World Cup scheduled next year, the idea to include former cricket stars could not be better timed.

Gavaskar wants Mahendra Singh Dhoni's team to show the same "energy" and conviction to erase the memories of a horrible tour of Australia in 2011. To win a Test series on the back of Modi's historic tour will be the perfect icing on the cake. But the Australians, smarting under Test defeats against Pakistan in UAE, will surely come hard against the Indians, who will have to plan the series as well as their gourmet delights.

Modi referred to India's cricket relationship with Australia but there will be no diplomacy in the middle. Gavaskar, who has been India's cricket global ambassador, has gone gaga over the Prime Minister's visit, especially when Modi visited the historic Melbourne Cricket ground, where the World Cup final will be played.

"There was the photo-op on the famed ground (MCG) where the two Prime Ministers first posed with the ICC World Cup and the Border-Gavaskar trophy. Significantly, our Prime Minister had his hand on the World Cup and the Australian Prime Minister on the Border-Gavaskar trophy. Both, of course, are currently in India's possession," he said.

"When I mentioned to Modi that he had his hands on the right trophy he laughed heartily. He knows that the World Cup comes every four years while the Border-Gavaskar trophy is contested every other year, and so the world cup is definitely more precious.

"When he later presented a memento to Abbott, he explained the significance of the charkha and talked about the signatures of Kapil, Laxman and myself on the white balls on the trophy, and it was left to Kapil to add that the third ball which carried our Prime Minister's signature was the most important, as it carried signature of the captain of India in its truest term," he added.

(With PTI inputs)