Former Indian cricket team opener Gautam Gambhir recently opined that the management could have given a chance to rising star Deepak Hooda in the first game of the five-match T20I series against the South African cricket team. The series got underway on Thursday evening at the Arun Jaitley Stadium. The South African cricket team defeated the Indian cricket team by seven wickets to take a 1-0 lead in the series.
The Indian cricket team’s playing XI had three wicket-keeping options in that fixture. Dinesh Karthik, Rishabh Pant, and Ishan Kishan all could keep wickets. There was no off-spin bowling option. Left-arm spinner Axar Patel and right-arm leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal failed to trouble the in-form David Miller much.
An off-spinner like Deepak Hooda could have taken the ball away from Miller and troubled him a little bit. Gautam Gambhir felt that the Indian cricket team could have given him a place in the playing XI instead of Dinesh Karthik, but now that they preferred Karthik, they must stick with him.
“Now that you have played Dinesh Karthik, you will play him. I still feel you could have played Deepak Hooda, the form he was in and he is a youngster. But in the next matches, I don’t think any changes are required to be done unless the wicket is extremely dry,” Gambhir said during a discussion on Star Sports.
