'I didn't understand why Jadeja was sent ahead of Suryakumar Yadav'- Gautam Gambhir criticized India's tactics in the World Cup final

India couldn’t extend their 10-match winning streak in the 2023 World Cup as they lost to Australia in the final on Sunday. After being asked to bat first, the Men in Blue could muster only 240 runs and, in reply, Australia chased it down comfortably with six wickets in hand. A lot of former cricketers criticized the defensive approach taken by the Indian team in the final. While some were disappointed with the way KL Rahul batted, others felt that the Ahmedabad pitch ploy "backfired". 

In a recent interaction with Sportskeeda, former cricketers Gautam Gambhir and Wasim Akram criticized Indian team’s decision to send Ravindra Jadeja ahead of Suryakumar Yadav, who was playing in the game purely as a batter. 

“I didn't understand why Jadeja was sent ahead of Suryakumar Yadav. Why was he demoted to No. 7? That was nowhere the right call for me,” Gambhir said. 
The 2011-World Cup winner said Suryakumar Yadav would have played aggressively had he came to bat at his usual number six position. He, rather, played defensively because there were no batters left after him to bat.

“Imagine if KL Rahul as batting with a certain temp with Kohli then it makes even more sense to sent Suryakumar in and ask him to play aggressive cricket, play his natural cricket because you still have Jadeja. It is very easy to say for an expert to say that Suryakumar struggled. But the player's mindset is that if he gets out the next batters are Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Siraj and Kuldeep. However, if he knows that the next batsman in is Jadeja then he would have had a different mindset. If you were not confident in Suryakumar at No. 6 then you might as well should have picked someone else,” Gambhir added. 

Wasim Akram said along on the similar lines, adding that the decision would have made sense had Hardik Pandya was there in that batting unit.

“I mean he is playing purely as a batter there. I could have understood the move if Hardik was there in the line-up.”

Following the 2023 World Cup loss, India are poised to play a 5-match T20 series against Australia, starting 23 November 2023.