‘Why is he being made the scapegoat for our batting failures?’ – Sunil Gavaskar lashes out after Cheteshwar Pujara’s snub by selectors from WI tour

The selection committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) officially announced the squads for the multi-format series against West Indies, scheduled to be played in July. Following the announcement, former cricketer Sunil Gavaskar slammed the think tank for excluding the Test specialist, Cheteshwar Pujara, for the forthcoming tour.

Gavaskar cited the poor performances by the batters of the Indian team after their recent failure in the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) 2021-23 final against Australia. The former cricketer was of the opinion that Pujara was being made the ‘scapegoat’ for team India’s batting failures when there were others in the setup, who did not rise up to the occasion in the WTC final.

"Clearly, only one man has been singled out while others also failed. To me, the batting failed. Apart from Ajinkya Rahane, of course, in both innings, he got 89 and 46, nobody else really got runs. Why is he [Cheteshwar Pujara] dropped then? Why is he being made the scapegoat for our batting failures? He has been a servant of Indian cricket, a loyal servant. Because he doesn’t have millions of followers on whatever platforms who would make a noise in case he gets dropped?” Gavaskar told India Today.

"I mean, you dropped him? That is beyond understanding. What is the criteria for dropping him and keeping the others who failed? He has been playing county cricket. He has played a lot of red-ball cricket, so he knows what it is about. People can play till they are 40 or 39. There is nothing wrong because they are all very fit. As long as you are scoring the runs and taking wickets, I don’t think age should be a factor,” he added.

Pujara had a dismal time with the bat against Australia in the WTC Final

Speaking about Pujara’s performances in the WTC final, the right-hander could only manage to compile scores of 14 and 27 runs in the solitary Test at The Oval in London. Meanwhile, the likes of Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Mukesh Kumar have been selected in the Test setup for the forthcoming tour.

India's Test squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane (vc), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Yashasvi Jaiswal, KS Bharat (wk), R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, Ishan Kishan (wk), Navdeep Saini