Follow UsIndia put up an excellent fight on Day 4 of the ongoing Manchester Test and now have a chance to draw the game. From 0 for 2 in the first over, KL Rahul (87*) and Shubman Gill (78*) have put on an unbeaten 174 for the third wicket, which has given the visitors a glimmer of hope of getting something out of the game.
The selection calls made for this game have been under the scanner over the last four days. For instance, India handed a debut to Anshul Kamboj ahead of Kuldeep Yadav and Prasidh Krishna and also brought back Shardul Thakur in place of the injured Nitish Kumar Reddy.
While questioning these calls, former India captain Sunil Gavaskar also wondered who makes the final call - Skipper Gill or head coach Gautam Gambhir.
"The point is that at the end of the day it's a captain's team, like Nasser [Hussain] said. You can't say this, he didn't want somebody, maybe in Shardul Thakur's case or Kuldeep Yadav's case - he should have had them in the team. He's the captain. People are going to talk about him and his captaincy. So, it's got to be his call really," Gavaskar said on Sony Sports, according to Hindustan Times.
The former captain also said that he never understood the captain-coach equation, as he never had a head coach when he led India.
"We didn't have coaches. We just had former players as managers or assistant managers of the team. They were the kind of people who you went up to and talked to, they gave you some advice at lunchtime or at the end of the day's play or on the eve of the game," Gavaskar said.
"So, it is difficult for me to get my head around the captain and the coach's combination. When I was captain, we had nobody who was a former player. To be honest, we had Wing Commander Durrani, Raj Singh Dungarpur. The only time we had Erapalli Prassana, and he was great."
Gavaskar concluded by saying that the buck should stop with the captain, as he believes that it is his team after all.
"I know for the sake of the showing everything hunky dory these things might not come out. The fact is that captain is the one who is responsible. He is the one, who is going to be leading those," he said.
If India were to lose the Test at Old Trafford, it would mark the third straight series loss under head coach Gambhir.