India's top 3 batsmen are the world's envy at the moment: Sunil Gavaskar

Nagpur: Former India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar has credited the Indian batting’s top-order, saying that India's top three were the world's envy. India defeated Australia by 7 wickets on Sunday to clinch the ODI series 4-1. In the absence of Shikhar Dhawan, it was Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane who opened the Indian innings in all of the five matches.

In the final match here on Sunday, the duo put up an opening partnership of 124, after which Rahane departed for 61.

"Between four and seven, it should be a floating batting order. The kind of top 3 that we have, I think they are the world's envy right at the moment. Whether it is Shikhar and Rohit or Ajinkya and Rohit, then Virat at 3, it's the world's envy.

"These three are scoring runs most of the time, so No.4 generally comes into bat between the 30th and 40th over and doesn't get too much time," Gavaskar was quoted saying to NDTV.

Captain Kohli, meanwhile, failed to score a century in any of the last five matches, despite scoring 92 in the second ODI against Steve Smith and co in the second ODI at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. The 68-year-old also spoke on Kohli’s innings of 39 from 55 balls during the fifth ODI.

"It was not an easy pitch to bat on, it took you a little while to get used to it. The ball was not coming on to the bat as well as it did in Indore and Bengaluru and that's why Virat struggled a little bit with his timing.

“Also, he didn't have too many runs to score at the end of the day after the start that Rohit and Rahane had given. There was not much for Virat to do but he made sure that there wasn't a second wicket that fell quickly after Rahane went and thwarted the Australians,” he stated.

Virat Kohli and co will hope to continue their good run when they take on the Aussies in the first of the three T20 matches at the JSCA International Stadium Complex in Ranchi on October 7.