Sunil Gavaskar Critiques Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill ahead of Champions Trophy final: '...clearly, there's room for improvement'

"They have not been able to perform to their full potential because the opening partnerships, particularly from Rohit and Gill, have not provided the strong starts that the Indian team was expecting. This has been a consistent issue throughout the tournament, with their partnerships lasting for more than five overs only once, when they scored 69 runs in the first nine overs. Sunil Gavaskar mentioned this as a clear shortcoming that needs to be addressed."

Gavaskar also pointed out drawbacks with the bowling. While India took as many as five wickets in the first nine overs of their opening match against Bangladesh, their returns with the ball in the first powerplay haven't been too impressive since then. Moreover, India have often ended up conceding huge partnerships in the middle overs. "Even with the new ball, you might want to take wicket in the first 10 overs. You definitely want to take about 2 or 3 wickets. That's also not quite been happening."

“In the middle overs, we have not got wickets, even though the runs have not been flowing. So those are areas that you get better in those areas, the better the chances of going on and winning the final,” said Gavaskar.

No need to change bowling combination now

India had started off with three pacers and as many spinners. However, Varun Chakravarthy came as a fourth spinner in their final group game against New Zealand and ended up winning player of the match for his efforts. He put in another stellar performance against Australia and Gavaskar feels that India should now stick to this combination in the final, which will also be against New Zealand on Sunday.

"I think it is going to be 4 spinners. It has to be. Why change now? It's shown Chakravarthy's inclusion, Kuldeep's inclusion has shown how effective they can be. And also, wicket-taking balls are the best dot balls in limited-overs cricket or any format of the game. So they've been doing that, so there should be no change at all," said Gavaskar.

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