Gautam Gambhir slams Indian batters, says 'whenever the ball grips, India struggles'

Young left-arm spinner Dunith Wellalage sliced through the star-studded Indian batting lineup as he bagged a maiden five-wicket haul. Playing his 13th ODI match, Wellalage tormented the batting order and accounted for the wickets of Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, and Hardik Pandya. This performance by the left-arm spinner once again exposed the much-vaunted Indian batting order. Read: Who is Wellalage? Find out more about the young spinner Former India batter Gautam Gambhir was not impressed with the way the India batters folded against spin in this match. It was the first time India had lost all their 10 wickets to spinners in international cricket. In a conversation with Star Sports, Gambhir said that this was not a new issue and spoke about how the Indian batting fared against Adam Zampa and Ashton Agar in an Australia ODI earlier in the year in Chennai. Chasing down 270, Agar and Zampa picked up six wickets as India lost the match by 21 runs. Gambhir said, “Whenever the ball grips, we struggle and we don’t even know whether we can take the game deep. This is not a 350-run wicket…it’s of 270. Imagine if in 40 overs you are three down for 160 or 170, then when the ball grips, it is very important for the batters to adjust. Virat Kohli and KL Rahul’s were soft dismissals, but rest were beaten by the front foot. Rohit Sharma was beaten by pace, Gill by…that was a brilliant ball. You expect better from Indian batters.” India got off to a flying start, but the tide turned when Wellalage was introduced into the attack. He got rid of Shubman Gill with a flighted delivery that turned past the bat to clatter into the stumps. He then dismissed Rohit and Kohli in just three deliveries. He then accounted for the wicket of KL Rahul and ended his spell with a perfect delivery to account for Hardik Pandya. Gambhir was not very impressed with the way Gill played the delivery and said that the batter had closed the face of the bat and did not account for the turn.