Gautam Gambhir seems to be a shadow of his previous self..

[gaurav92]

what abt Sehwag? Both VS and GG seem to be off color. Are we going to have decent opening partnerships in Aus? :hmmm:

I doubt.

[b555]

we will no doubt

[King Tendulkar]

Blame the wife, giving poor gauti a hard time

[carnish]

Gauti's days are numbered in the team and i gueuss even parthiv is going to get a longer run in the indian side than gauti...:--D

[Sachinism]

Like Ponting, Gambhir also hasn't scored a ton since Jan '10 But he's not worried.. Nagraj Gollapudi interviews him This will be your first trip to Australia as a Test opener. Are you geared up for it? It is going to be a very challenging tour but exciting at the same time. As a cricketer you always want to do well in Australia, as that gives you a lot of satisfaction. It is a great place to play cricket in. I played in the CB Series in 2008 and I did pretty well there, and this time I am looking forwarding to opening in Test cricket. Australia are one team that come hard at you all the time. They do not let you score runs easily. They are a tough team to crack and they have always done well under pressure. They have a good fast bowling attack, and even the crowd there is against you When they come hard at you, you need to have a lot of mental strength to tackle them. You are going through a phase where you are getting starts but not converting them. Your last Test century came in January 2010. How much does that affect you in your batting? It is not that I'm not scoring runs. If I was getting out cheaply or getting very low scores, I would be thinking about it. Sometimes when you think too much about scoring a hundred, what happens is, you start getting desperate for it. I have always believed that when you open the batting you want to make the most of it; you want to score big runs. As an opening batsman you have to face the new ball and you never know what could happen in the next innings. But the most important thing is, you have to give [the team] decent starts. In the home Test series against West Indies we had some good opening stands between myself and Viru [Virender Sehwag], which set the platform for the middle order. I want to score runs and big runs. That is what I have always wanted to do. And when I was scoring big hundreds, I was not thinking about it. I was just staying in the present, watching the ball. That is what I am doing now. In the Indore ODI I thought I would get a hundred, but I was caught. I know I have not scored an international century for nearly a year, but the important thing is to keep scoring runs and keep scoring big runs. You mentioned getting desperate. Have you ever reached a point of desperation? People will always recognise a batsman if he scores a hundred. And when everyone keeps talking about [how] you have not scored a hundred, it plays on your mind. It is very difficult to take it out of your system. But as I said, if I keep thinking too much, I might not be able to score what I have been scoring and giving good starts. Then I would only be thinking about not scoring a hundred. You start from nought, and from nought to a hundred is a long, long journey. Have you spoken about it to anyone? This is something I cannot really discuss honestly. There are so many great batsmen who did not score hundreds for a long time, but once it comes you end up scoring a lot of hundreds together. It is just incidental. Before scoring my second Test hundred against Australia, in Mohali, I had said I just needed one and I would try and get lots of hundreds. That was what happened: I scored five in five. And now there is a phase where I have not scored a hundred in a long time. But at least I have been scoring decently and I have been pretty consistent. I do not want to score a hundred in one innings followed by a lot of low scores. I would rather have four or five good, decent scores that will contribute to the team's cause. Honestly I have not discussed this with anyone because deep inside my heart I know my style and I have scored five consecutive hundreds in five Test matches. So I am not getting worried yet. The England tour was a difficult time, where you were hit in the field and forced to return home due to concussion. It is absolutely fine now. In England out of the six innings, I played three with an injury. But that is over now. After that, in the England ODI series [in India] I managed to get some good scores, and against West Indies I was pretty happy with the way I was hitting my strokes. You and Sehwag did not open in all the matches in England, but both of you are now fit and among the runs. That should be a shot in the arm for the Indian batting. I remember Rahul [Dravid] saying in an interview that it was very good to have two positive openers because they can score runs very freely and very quickly. Whenever me and Viru open the batting, we always discuss scoring runs rather than surviving, because cricket is all about scoring runs. You can survive a whole session and score 30 to 50 runs, but suddenly you get out and realise that you have not taken the team anywhere. Instead, you'd rather have been 100 for 2 than 50 for 2. Both of us always look to be positive. Ultimately you want to score runs and put the opposition under pressure. What does Sehwag scoring 200 in ODI mean to you? It is very special, even to me. Being the highest run-getter in ODI cricket is no doubt a great feeling. He has done [the job] whenever he has got the opportunity. Hopefully he can continue with this form in Australia. Test matches are a different ball game but he can take a lot of confidence from this 200 against West Indies because having runs under your belt is always good when you go on a tough tour. It puts us in a good position to give good starts. Sehwag revealed that he had with him the DVD of Sachin Tendulkar's double-century for inspiration. Do you have anything similar to motivate yourself with? I do have some of my own good Test innings, like the century in Napier, the Wellington innings, the 90 and 70-odd in Cape Town. Watching them helps me get in the frame of mind for Test cricket. When you are constantly playing cricket, all three forms, you hardly get any time to adapt quickly mentally [and get] into the frame of mind needed for each format. http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/545121.html

[Kumar]

Hope his running between the wickets improve as him and sehwag arent the most reliable when taking the singles especially when MCG gloomes around the corner where taking singles/twos even running four is essential!

[Precambrian]

Has lost a lot of focus... evident in his batting... fielding has become dire as well.. he'll do well to regather and reapply himself.

[Dravid_TheWall]

Gambhir's got it all to do http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/546161.html

Gambhir has middling returns recently, though he has only really failed in England Ž© Associated Press Enlarge Related LinksInterviews : 'Forget the hundreds, just score runs' Numbers Game : Run-drought for Gambhir and Ponting, and Lara v Bravo Players/Officials: Gautam Gambhir Series/Tournaments: India tour of Australia Teams: India Gautam Gambhir knows the value of hundreds. Probably more than your average batsman. He had to fight through an ordinary start to his career, was dropped and forgotten, had to go back to domestic cricket when at times he felt like quitting the game altogether, and when he came back in 2008, all the hard work he put in would yield only half-centuries. The comeback began in the series of Murali and Mendis in Sri Lanka. Gambhir was India's second-best batsman on the tour but had only three half-centuries to show. Then another fifty followed, against Australia. Gambhir was anxious; he worried he wouldn't be taken seriously as a batsman if he didn't score centuries when in good form, and without hundreds what buffer would he have when form paled? As he walked back after one of those half-fulfilling innings, he heard people say he was good only for fifties. Of course, once he crossed the line once, Gambhir crossed it many times: eight times in 10 Tests. Two of those came in New Zealand - among them a second-innings marathon for 643 minutes to save a Test. The world respected him now; bowlers feared him, especially with Virender Sehwag at the other end; but bigger tests remained: those of seaming conditions and top-quality bowling in South Africa and England. At this point, Gambhir slipped back into no-hundreds mode. Scores of 5, 80, 93 and 64 in South Africa teased you. The 80 in Centurion promised a fight for the draw, the best India could have salvaged after a disastrous first dig, but they fell short. Had the 93 in the first innings at Newlands extended longer, in partnership with Sachin Tendulkar in imperious form, he could have set up a big lead. The final innings of the series was up his alley: injured and already ruled out of the ODIs, and with massive amounts of rough outside his off stump, he batted 271 minutes for just 64 to save the match, but again, no century. It sounds good to hear that hundreds don't matter, but would MS Dhoni really have been the Man of the Match in the World Cup final had Gambhir added three to his 97, an innings that rescued India after the early loss of Sehwag and Tendulkar? Would we be doubting Gambhir now if he had converted two of those innings in South Africa into hundreds? Yes, Gambhir was doing the job the team needed, but he wasn't leaving himself too much to live off in bad times. The bad times well and truly arrived in England. The opposition's bowling unit fired all together, and ruthlessly. Injuries showed up too. Feeling his way back into Test cricket, Gambhir scored only two half-centuries at home against West Indies. Slowly, unnoticed because Gambhir was putting in the regular important hand, it began to look ugly. Now these things cannot be controlled, but Gambhir is hardly a stranger to injury. Of India's last four overseas Test tours, he has missed one altogether, and he has been injured for four Tests on the other three. He has played just six of India's last 13 away Tests. Fairly or unfairly, tongues begin to wag. Not long ago he was the man Gary Kirsten would have nominated if his life depended on one innings. Now skills, commitment and bravery are all being questioned. Those numbers and injuries are the anatomy of a poor year - one without an international century. He last scored an international hundred on December 4 last year, against New Zealand in a home ODI. If he doesn't score one in the first three Tests in Australia, he will have spent two years without a Test hundred. It sounds good to hear that hundreds don't matter, but would MS Dhoni really have been the Man of the Match in the World Cup final had Gambhir added three to his 97, an innings that rescued India after the early loss of Sehwag and Tendulkar? Would we be doubting Gambhir now if he had converted two of his innings in South Africa into hundreds? You could sense he was nervous during the West Indies series at home. You could see he needed runs behind him to feel comfortable again. A small indication of it was when West Indies didn't provide him leg-side deliveries early in Mumbai, and he chased wide deliveries until he got off the mark. Once he hit a boundary to score his first runs, he settled down. Gambhir is an intense individual. He admits to being too hard on himself. In 2009, in the middle of a purple patch, he told ESPNcricinfo he still felt insecure after one low score. Having come out of the pits once, Gambhir says he is not too worried now. A day before boarding the flight to Australia he told ESPNcricinfo: "People will always recognise a batsman if he scores a hundred. And when everyone keeps talking about [how] you have not scored a hundred, it plays on your mind. It is very difficult to take it out of your system. But as I said, if I keep thinking too much, I might not be able to score what I have been scoring and giving good starts. Then I would only be thinking about not scoring a hundred. You start from nought, and from nought to a hundred is a long, long journey." Of all the five men who are certainties in the Indian batting line-up, it is to Gambhir that this tour to Australia is most important. Yes, this is the last one for the big three, and that will bring its sense of importance, but Gambhir is the one who has stuff to prove. His is still a young career. He has not scored centuries in South Africa and England, he is yet to play in Australia. In his 12 Tests outside India, not counting Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, he has conquered New Zealand, has managed to live in South Africa and Sri Lanka, and been conquered by England. It is a middling return, despite his having really failed only in England. His average of 53.30 when he has opened in such Tests is impressive, behind only Manoj Prabhakar among Indian openers. Of the three big tests for an Indian opener - tours to England, South Africa and Australia - this coming one will be the least tough. Yes, there will be more bounce, but also less seam movement. And England and South Africa have better attacks at the moment. Gambhir's first task will be to play the whole series, through fitness and through good starts, which he and Sehwag did in the home series against West Indies. That's all he says he wants to think of right now, not centuries. If he does get those starts he will need to make the most of them because India don't travel to a testing venue for two full years after this.

Very good article. I do believe this is the reason that Kohli accelerated in that WI ODI after his ton and the game was already won-to stop Rohit making a 100. Rohit was left unbeaten on 90 odd. This is because a 100 carries more weight. Do not listen to Sachin sad worshippers or to Sachin himself when he says as long as I score 99 everytime and the team wins I am happy. Remember, milestones and records is essentially what adds medals to a general and makes you indispensible.

[Pagalpanti]

I do believe this is the reason that Kohli accelerated in that WI ODI after his ton and the game was already won-to stop Rohit making a 100. Rohit was left unbeaten on 90 odd.

Not again. :facepalm:

[tatters]

If you're mentally strong, scoring 101 doesn't do much more to your confidence than scoring 99.

[saneindian]

OP, what do you keep smoking to comeup with so much of crap in nearly every post of yours?

[8ankitj]

Gambhir has most certainly delivered more than any of the newer bunch in alien conditions. Like Dravid, he has a better record away than at home. So I'll put my money on him for the Aus tour than on Sehwag, Kohli, Rohit.

[MCcricket]

Gambhir is a tough nut, has won us games, very talented and plays according to team requirements, he will certainly score runs, raise his game, :two_thumbs_up:

[achilles]

All he needs are some sharp words from the Aussies. Someone please try to rock his boat.

[tothepoint]

OP' date=' what do you keep smoking to comeup with so much of crap in nearly every post of yours?[/quote'] :hysterical:

[saneindian]

The same old problem. Poor defense and then attempting a cute little tickle, on a pitch where there is some seam movement. Looked completely out of sorts.

[cowboysfan]

GG should be banned from playing that late 3rd man pokes,he gets out to that shot all the time.

[asterix]

Playing POKER with his career..What a JOKER..

[cowboysfan]

his place in the team is not assured,forget about runs,he has major technique problems.

[Number]

got away with this shot so many times against WI. so foolish of him to repeat those mistakes on this track ..