Test cricket is changing because of white-ball game, art of defending is diminishing, says Gambhir

Mumbai: The advent of T20 cricket has caused a churn in long-form cricket and the modern Test players have forgotten the art of obdurate defending and grinding out the bowling. The approach now is to have a swing at the bowling, especially with England unleashing its Bazball tactics and India following suit under new head coach Gautam Gambhir.

Though Gambhir rejected the suggestion that his batters have lost the skill to play spin on a turning track like they did against Mitchell Santner in the second Test of the three-match series at the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) Stadium in Pune last week, the 43-year-old player turned coach said the art of playing Test cricket has changed because of T20 format and the World Test Championship that the International Cricket Council has launched a few years back.

“To be a successful Test cricketer, you see people like Virat (Kohli). You see all the great players who’ve done really well in Test cricket for a long period, they’ve always had good defence. The foundation of your batting in Test cricket has to be defence and then you start taking up from there.

It is probably a lot to do with playing on flat wickets in T20 cricket. But again, I think we need to keep working on our defence, we need to keep working on our game, we need to keep tightening our game because Test cricket is test cricket. You will see going forward in future, we’ll have the same issues with a lot of other teams as well because the more the T20 cricket is played, the lesser people will start defending.

Gambhir said teams will have to adapt to this approach in Test cricket and this could lead to having separate teams for each format with Test squads having players that can bat out 2-3 sessions, obdurately defending for hours together.

“See, at the moment it’s difficult to answer this question. But going forward, obviously, we will have to identify players who are solid red ball cricketers because ultimately, to get the results, you will have to work really hard for three or four days, to be honest. So sometimes, as I just mentioned, it’s important to bat sessions as well. And if you can bat sessions, we know that we’ve got the bowling attack to take 20 wickets.

“So at the moment, it’s difficult to answer because it’s a hypothetical question. But yes, identifying the right red ball batters is very, very important,” he added.

Gambhir said his team’s struggle against spin in Pune was not surprising but added that his players are aware that they need to keep improving and getting better at playing defensively.

“Look, I’m not surprised. Surprise is not the right word. I think it’s just that, as I said, Mitchell Santner bowled really well in Pune. But we need to keep getting better as well. We need to keep defending better. I think that is important, especially on a turning track. Because if you’ve got confidence in your defence, a lot of things can be sorted. That is something which we need to keep getting better at and keep working on. Because, again, I’ll keep going back to the same answer that a lot has to do with limited-overs cricket and T20 cricket as well. Sometimes you’re so used to, muscling the ball that you end up forgetting the soft hands and all that stuff. This probably used to happen 8 or 10 years back,” said Santner.

–IANS