India has lost another Test at home against South Africa after being whitewashed by New Zealand last year. Altough they did manage to win against West Indies against South Africa, the familiar flaws came to the forefront again. As a result, the social media netizens and other fans have called for the sacking of Head Coach Gautham Gambhir. However, his former teammate at Kolkata Knight Riders, Robin Uthappa, came to the rescue of the coach and defended him.
“Its not the coach who is playing. What kind of a question is that? People have gone after Rahul Dravid. If he can get trolled and be called, people will call anybody. We anticipated a bit of a dip. Before the England series we were saying we have to be realistic with the expectations. This is side sans Kohli, Rohit, Ashwin, Pujara, Rahane. So its going to be a young side and they will have to show a lot of character. They outdid themselves in England,” he said on his YouTube channel.
“Because it is the Indian team and there are expectations, you cannot escape the fact that this team is under transition. You have to measure your expectations, whether it is home or away. They have the potential to be WTC champions, but not this cycle, maybe in the next cycle. So use this cycle to develop them and give exposure, continue to play on turners but not on underprepared wickets like in Kolkata,” he added.
In addition to India’s batting, as the Test match ended in three days, there have been questions raised on the quality of the pitch.
“It was not a turning track, it was a horrible batting track. It was a bad wicket. No batter could ever feel set. There’s not just turn but variable bounce as well. You cannot assume that you are set on this kind of a wicket,” Uthapa said.
