'We came running into the stadium' - R Sridhar relives 36 all-out horror against Australia in 2021

R Sridhar, Indian Team (Image Source: Twitter)

Indian team and fans can never forget the Gabba breach that happened during the last tour against Australia. India, under the coaching of Ravi Shastri and Ajinkya Rahane, pulled off a blockbuster to breach Gabba and win the series. But prior to that, India went through a tough time. The team got dismissed for 36 in the pink-ball test and it turned out to be a nightmare start to the series. 

Former India fielding coach R Sridhar has opened up on the same and took fans behind the scenes. He revealed the reactions that everyone came up with and said that it was a shocker. The former coach revealed to cricket.com that one could never believe what happened when India got dismissed for 36. 

“In the 2021 series against Australia, it was a toss-up between a better WK and a better batsman, and the vote went to Wriddhiman Saha. At that time, he was the best wicketkeeper in the world. But then, the 36-all-out happened,” Sridhar said. 

Further revealing the incident, R Sridhar said that he was giving practice to Rishabh Pant in the nearby nets. He further added that he did not witness what was happening and was shocked to know the horror when he returned. 

We didn't even see it live: R Sridhar

“You won't believe, on the Day 3 morning when the wickets got tumbling, Pant and I were outside on the practice pitches, working on keeping. We kept hearing these loud 'oooohhhs' and thunderous applauses at Adelaide Oval. And we were both like, 'Oh I hope it's not a wicket'. And after about 20 minutes, we aborted our keeping session and came running into the stadium to see what the score was. It was 21/7. Me and Rishabh were like, 'What has just happened here?!' We didn't even see it live,” the coach added further. 

The coach further added that the team realized what went wrong and corrected it further. He said that the team understood the importance of a left-handed batter in the top six and brought one in. 

“And then, we realized that we don't have a left-hander in the top-6. We had all the right-handers. We wanted to bring a left-hander in the series and we got Rishabh Pant. He played from the 2nd Test and the rest, as they say, is history,” R Sridhar concluded.