"The boasts of a bully" - Sunil Gavaskar calls out 'scaremongers' Australian Media after India's dominant 1st BGT 2024-25 win
Former Indian batter Sunil Gavaskar has slammed the Australian media for being 'scaremongers' by attempting to pressure the visitors' batters ahead of the first Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test at Perth. His remarks came days after India completed an incredible 295-run victory, handing the Aussies their first Test loss at the Perth Stadium.
Despite the pitch favoring pace and bounce throughout the contest, the Indians outperformed their Australian counterparts in all departments.
In his column for Sportstar, Gavaskar wrote:
"All the boasts about how the pitch is going to be pacy and bouncy and scare the living daylights out of the Indian batters were exactly that — the boasts of a bully. Mind you, it wasn’t the Aussie players but their support staff in the media, both electronic and print, who were trying to be scaremongers."
The former Indian opener also cited the example of the Australian media playing similar mind games before the Perth Test in 2008.
"It was very similar to 2007/8 after the kerfuffle between Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds in the Sydney Test match. The Australian selectors had added Shaun Tait to the Aussie squad for the next Test match in Perth, and the media were going nuts, suggesting he was going to blow the Indians away on the fast, bouncy WACA pitch in Perth," wrote Gavaskar.
Much like the 2024 Perth Test, Team India stunned the hosts in 2008 with a 72-run win at the old WACA stadium.
"Virender Sehwag had just swatted Brett Lee, Tait, and the others as if he was swatting the famous Perth flies" - Sunil Gavaskar
In the same column, Sunil Gavaskar recalled how former opener Virender Sehwag treated the Australian pace attack with utter disdain in the 2008 Perth Test, sending speedster Shaun Tait into an indefinite break from cricket.
With a pacy and bouncy track on offer, Australia drafted Tait to throw a four-pronged fast bowling attack at the Indian batters for the encounter. However, the move backfired as he finished with figures of 0/92 in the match.
"What happened? ‘The Wall’ was so solid, but before that, the swashbuckling Virender Sehwag had just swatted Brett Lee, Tait, and the others as if he was swatting the famous Perth flies. He singled out Tait for special attention as if to rubbish the Aussie media claims about the pacers scaring the Indian batters. At the end of the Test match, guess what happened? Tait took an indefinite break from international cricket," said Gavaskar.
He added:
"The Indians had the last laugh by winning the Test match and, if the umpires had not made some forgettable decisions under pressure from the Aussies in the previous Test match in Sydney, then India would have gone to Adelaide for the final Test of that series with the score 1-all."
Sehwag got India off to a blistering start in both innings, scoring 29 and 43 with a combined 13 boundaries.
The 72-run win in the third Test at Perth kept India alive in the four-match series after they suffered a heartbreaking defeat in a controversy-filled second Test in Sydney to trail 0-2.