When Gavaskar did a Dhoni

Indian batting legend Sunil Gavaskar on Saturday came out in support of Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his team saying they were justified in staging a show of unity.

"I would think that it is a point they are trying to make; they are trying to show that everything is fine. I don't see anything wrong with that. I think they have taken the initiative to show they are together," he said in Nottingham, at an event to launch Cricket Radio.

The whole Indian squad gathered at the press conference venue on Friday to protest against reports in a section of the Indian media suggesting a rift between Dhoni and his deputy, Virender Sehwag.

Captain Dhoni read out a statement saying the team is united and also slammed the Indian media for 'false and irresponsible' reportage.

Asked whether he would have done something similar if he was captain, Gavaskar replied: "Well, I am not sure, because the circumstances when I played cricket were totally different. It would have been a tough call."

 The former India captain, however, recalled that he and some of his team members were involved in something similar during their playing days too.

"I remember something similar when we took pretty much the whole team to a newspaper office. There was something that had comes in the papers and we told them this was not so. This was something written about, well not match-fixing, but about players not playing. So, you can say it is a precedent in Indian cricket. We were at the camp. It was not a Test team or a selected team, but most of the guys who were selected for the team," he said.

Gavaskar, though, believes that Friday's controversy will bring the team together and inspire them to perform better in the ongoing World T20 tournament.

"What is going to happen is that they will go out and really try to play out of their skin to show everything is absolutely fine, which is great for Indian cricket," he said.

The 'Little Master' also had a few words of advise to the Indian players on how to handle criticism.

 "Obviously, the best way is to try and focus on the job in hand, which is to play cricket. The media has its job; if it senses something, they are obviously going to talk about it. There has never been a situation in Indian cricket, to the best of my knowledge since the 1930s, and it has always been smooth sailing."