"You Just Need To...": Sunil Gavaskar Faces Internet's Ire After 'Foot-Licking' Comment On Gautam Gambhir Backers

Former Indian cricket team captain and batting great Sunil Gavaskar is facing the ire of social media users after a rather strong opinion on the aggressive approach of the Indian cricket team in the second Test against Bangladesh. In that match the Rohit Sharma-led India batted aggressively, sometimes going over 8 runs per over, and extracted a result out of teh game even though over two days were lost due to rain. After the match, the term 'Gamball' went viral, referring to Gambhir's approach as new India coach. It was a derivative of the word 'Bazball' referring to England's changed approach under coach Brendon 'Baz' McCullum.

However, Gavaskar said in a column that rather than terming it 'Gamball', the approach should be called 'Gohit' referring tp skipper Rohit's influence. "Gambhir has only been coaching for a couple of months, so attributing this approach to him is foot-licking of the highest quality. Gambhir himself hardly ever batted in this fashion like McCullum used to do. If any credit is due, it is solely to Rohit and nobody else," he wrote for Sportstar.

The comment did not go down well with social media users.

Sunny Gavaskar should sit down & retire

— Ben (@Roy_CW1) October 7, 2024

Imagine uniting almost all of Cricket Twitter against you while you're dissing Gambhir.

This could just be one of the greatest achievements of Gavaskar Sahab's post retirement career.

— Akash (@Akashkumarjha14) October 7, 2024

Gavaskar Sahab with all due respect and always been your fan but sometimes you just need to just

— LastOver BeforeDrinks (@LastoverB) October 7, 2024

"Just as any scandal is now called this-gate or that-gate after the Watergate scandal over 50 years ago in the United States of America, this Indian batting approach was labelled this-ball and that-ball after the term “Bazball” was coined for the England team's batting attitude. It was called this because “Baz” is the nickname of their coach, Brendon McCullum from New Zealand, who batted exactly as his team is doing — throwing caution to the winds in an attempt to score runs," Gavaskar wrote.

"As seen in India last year, this approach doesn't work in Test matches and may surprise the opposition for a game or two at best. While one paper called the Indian batting “Bossball” because the captain or “boss” of the team, Rohit, had shown the way, some from the old powers referred to it as “Gamball” after the Indian coach, Gautam Gambhir. While the England batting approach changed completely under the new regime of Ben Stokes and McCullum, we have seen over the last couple of years that Rohit has been batting like this and encouraging his team to do so as well.

"Instead of using the words this-ball or that-ball, I would suggest using the skipper's first name, Rohit, and term it the “Gohit” approach. Hopefully, brainier people will come up with a trendier name for this rather than the lazy option of calling it after “Bazball.”"

Topics mentioned in this article

India Cricket Team Gautam Gambhir Sunil Gavaskar Rohit Sharma Cricket