Arvind Pujara questions Indian team management's decision to ask batsmen to retire out

In the last couple of years, we have observed a common practice by the Indian team in practice games. They ask the batsman who gets to a certain score (usually fifty) or has played a certain number of deliveries to retire out so that all the batsmen get to bat. They have also opted to field the entire squad of 15 or 17 to make sure all their bowlers have a fair chance to make a final appeal for selection.

While warm-up matches are looked at as an opportunity to give every player in the squad a chance to stake their claim for the available spots by the management Indian batsman Cheteshwar Pujara’s father Arvind Pujara is miffed by the strategy. He believes there is hardly any logic backing this decision to make a batsman who is playing well retire out and instead send another man in.

Pujara who coached his son in the initial few years was quoted by Deccan Chronicles saying, “I don’t know what was the logic of these batsmen or the captain (Virat Kohli) but it is not against the spirit of the game”,

“They may have their own tactics. Being a coach for my son, I never had opportunity to discuss such move with him in the past. As a coach, my job was to teach him the basics of the game. The coach of the current generation apply their own tactics in the match”, he added.

Also read – BCCI pays Rs 2.2 crore to Mohammed Shami for missing IPL 2015

India’s 17-man squad for the tour:

Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, R Ashwin, Stuart Binny, Shikhar Dhawan, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Amit Mishra, Mohammed Shami, Cheteshwar Pujara, Lokesh Rahul, Wriddhiman Saha, Ishant Sharma, Rohit Sharma, Shardul Thakur, Murali Vijay, Umesh Yadav

West Indies has announced the 12-man squad for the first Test:

Jason Holder (C), Kraigg Brathwaite (VC), Devendra Bishoo, Jermaine Blackwood, Carlos Brathwaite, Darren Bravo, Rajendra Chandrika, Roston Chase, Shane Dowrich, Shannon Gabriel, Leon Johnson, Marlon Samuels