NEW DELHI: Legendary Indian cricketer
Sunil Gavaskar
hailed India's outstanding performance in the year gone by as he summed up the team's heartbreaking loss in the ODI World Cup final as just one bad day after unbelievable 10 successive victories.
The men's team lifted the
Asia Cup
trophy and secured the gold medal at the Hangzhou
Asian Games
. Despite these successes, the Rohit Sharma-led side faced defeats against Australia in both the
World Test Championship
(WTC) and the World Cup finals.
"That's been the most exciting aspect of cricket apart from, of course, what we saw in the World Cup. The 10 straight wins, and, then, just that one bad day, which sadly happened to be the finals of the World Cup. So really some exciting times in 2023," Gavaskar said on the Star Sports show 'Follow the Blues'.
The batting great also commended the women's team for their historic victories over England and Australia. Under the captaincy of
Harmanpreet Kaur
, the women's team achieved notable success by defeating England and Australia in one-off Tests, showcasing their prowess and outplaying two of the top teams in the world.
"I think it's been a fantastic year for both the men's and the women's teams, particularly the way the women's team has performed. Those two Test wins towards the year-end, one against England and one against Australia, both teams against whom the Indian women's team have had tough times earlier on," Gavaskar added.
While the women's team is set to face Australia in the third and final ODI of a three-match series on Tuesday, the men's team will commence the New Year with the second and final Test against South Africa, starting on Wednesday in Cape Town.
India faced a setback in the first Test against South Africa, losing by an innings and 32 runs, which drew criticism from former players, including Gavaskar.
The 74-year-old pointed out the absence of practice matches as one of the major reasons behind the disappointing result.
"The reasons are straightforward - you didn't play any matches here. If you straightaway play Test matches, it doesn't work out. Yes, you sent the India A team. The India A team should actually come before the tour," he said on Star Sports.
Gavaskar highlighted the significance of adequate match practice in preparation for Test series and suggested that the lack of such matches impacted India's performance negatively.
"You need to play practice matches after coming here. Intra-squad is a joke because would your fast bowlers bowl extremely fast to your batters, would they bowl bouncers, as they would be scared about injuring their batters," he added.
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