India have taken over from South Africa as cricket's biggest chokers after their crushing one-day series defeat against Australia, according to former captain Sunil Gavaskar.
World champions Australia humiliated India by 208 runs on Sunday, skittling them out for 151 in the second match, to clinch the best-of-three VB tri-series finals with two authoritative victories.
India's top six batsmen managed just 74 runs during their seven-wicket defeat in the first final at Melbourne on Friday, and contributed only 51 in the second on Sunday.
"India's top order had been softened in Perth and hadn't recovered at all," Gavaskar wrote in the Hindustan Times on Monday, referring to the batsmen's struggle in the previous two matches at the bouncy western Australian venue.
"...so ordinary and unedifying was the sight of the batsmen getting dismissed regularly that the tag of 'chokers in crunch matches' now belongs to them and not South Africa, who had monopolised it for a long time now."
South Africa have a reputation for caving in, particularly against Australia, the most famous occasion being the 1999 World Cup semi-final which they looked certain to win but failed in the final over.
India's spineless batting against the hosts in the one-dayers took much sheen away from their performances in the preceding four-Test series, where they confounded critics with a creditable 1-1 draw.
Indian newspapers slammed the cricket team while lavishing praise on tennis player Leander Paes, for securing a 3-2 Davis Cup victory over New Zealand in their Asian zonal tie, and the unfancied women's hockey team, which claimed the Asia Cup.
Most dailies published front page pictures of dejected India captain Sourav Ganguly alongside the celebrating hockey players and the tennis squad.
The 30-year-old Paes, who has led India to several improbable Cup victories in the past, made a memorable debut as captain by winning both his singles and the doubles, having just returned after a long lay-off to undergo treatment for a non-malignant brain lesion.
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