Sunil Gavaskar: Tim Paine & Co’s loss to India hasn't left their consciousness

Series-decider hero, India ’keeper Rishabh Pant is hugged by Prithvi Shaw as Australian captain Tim Paine (right) leaves the field at Brisbane. Pic/AFP

Indian batting legend Sunil Gavaskar has said the Australian cricket-loving public has overlooked captain Tim Paine's tactical deficiencies which has been displayed often since he took the captaincy after the ball tampering saga in 2018.

Paine was in the news recently when he said that sideshows by the Indians on their recent tour of Australia distracted the hosts in a bid to reclaim the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

"Sometimes it's better to let sleeping dogs lie. If Tim Paine, the Australian captain had known of this old saying, then he would have skipped talking about the loss to India in the series in December-January. However, such was the incredulous feeling in Australian cricket circles about that defeat that it still hasn't gone out of their consciousness if one goes by Paine's recent comments," wrote Gavaskar in his Sunday Mid-day column, before bringing up the Australian's foibles.

Gavaskar added: "To the dispassionate observer his tactical naïveté has been evident for some time but with the team holding on to the Ashes in England, all that has been overlooked and that naïveté more than anything, cost Australia the series against India.

"One won't even go to the Leeds Test match where Ben Stokes was allowed to take England to a win in the company of No. 11 Jack Leach. Let's look at the India series itself. After dismissing India for its lowest-ever total of 36 in the first Test, the Australians should have run away with the series. In fact, all the Aussie former greats predicted at that stage a 4-0 margin for Australia, a total whitewash. India were down and out, their captain had gone home and the Aussie fast bowlers had barely broken a sweat in dismissing the team for 36. So what does Paine do in the next Test match? After Ajinkya Rahane called wrong at the toss (in Melbourne), Paine opted to bat first. This, on a pitch, which as Ricky Ponting, the former skipper, said in his pitch report, had three millimetres more grass than in the previous Test where India had been dismissed for 36. Instead of sending the shell shocked Indians to bat first, Paine allowed them to get their breath back and get to see what the pitch was doing. The Indian pacers took advantage of the extra grass cover by dismissing the hosts for under 200 and India were back in the series. Then, in the next Test at Sydney, he didn't have his spearhead Mitchell Starc bowling at a time when both Hanuma Vihari's and Ravichandran Ashwin's movements were restricted by their injuries."