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Gautam Gambhir on Team India youngsters, compare Quinton de Kock's batting to Sangakkara and Lara
India and South Africa will play the 1st T20i match at HPCA Stadium in Dharamshala on Sunday.
Former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir feels that the T20I series against South Africa provides another opportunity for youngsters to cement their place before the T20 World Cup in Australia next year. Earlier when India played three T20i series against series West Indies in the USA and West Indies tour, the youngsters performed well to helping the team to a series victory.
Writing a column for The Times of India Gambhir wrote “It is another opportunity for young Indian batsmen to cement their place in the side. Manish Pandey looks much younger than his age of 29. Shreyas Iyer explained enough in the West Indies that he is a great deal more than the ‘South Bombay’ swag. KL Rahul is a force in white-ball format. Rishabh Pant is always exciting but he has to watch his back as my favourite Sanju Samson is throwing some serious challenges at him. It is an exciting series as there are a lot of individual battles going on considering the T20 World Cup next year.”
India and South Africa will play their next two T20Is of this series at Mohali (18th September) and Bengaluru (22nd September). After this series, they will be busy in the three-match Test series in October. The former World Cup winner also praised the South African wicketkeeper-batsman Quinton de Kock and compared his batting with the legendary Sri Lankan wicketkeeper Kumar Sangakkara and legendary Caribbean batsman Brian Lara.
Gambhir wrote , “In the context of South Africa’s tour of India, the visitors may relate to this as this is their first international engagement after a forgetful World Cup campaign. I like Quinton de Kock. He is one of those gorgeous left-handers which I always aspired to be but could never be. In full flow, he reminds me of Kumara Sangakkara and Brian Lara. Hopefully, he delivers as a captain but not at the cost of curtailing fluidity of his batting.”
Quinton de Kock will lead the Proteas side in this T20I series against India. Earlier, de Kock led the South African side in two ODIs and they suffered defeats in both those games.
