Funky hairstyles and tattoos a criteria for selection: Sunil Gavaskar

Men in Blue are in the middle of a golden run right now as they have not lost a single game on Sri Lanka tour in both Test and ODI formats. The team is winning comfortably despite making a lot of experiments in order to test the bench strength. But former skipper Sunil Gavaskar is not happy and has taunted that funky hairstyles and tattoos might be the criteria to get selected in the playing eleven.

The legendary cricketer pointed out that the players who have done nothing wrong are being left out of the team. Also, unnecessary experiments are made in the batting order according to him. Hardik Pandya was sent in ahead of Manish Pandey and KL Rahul in the 4th ODI when they were comfortably placed. Eventually, the move failed as Pandya couldn’t cash in on the golden opportunity to bat at number 4.

All the nice guys are being left out

While Gavaskar was happy with the team’s form and hailed them for the same, he questioned the selection of few individuals. With KL Rahul constantly being selected despite failing in all the games so far and Pandya being sent up the order for no reason, he couldn’t help but think that a player falling in line with the trends was considered over others.

“The way the selections have gone for this series, it looks like all the nice guys are being left out and they are missing out on fattening their individual career aggregates with bat or ball. “Maybe they should start getting a different hairstyle and some body art done too to get picked in the team,” he wrote in his column for The Times of India.

The legend was also not happy about the exclusion of the trio, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Kedar Jadhav and Yuzvendra Chahal. He was furious to see Ajinkya Rahane warming the bench even after being the Man of the series in West Indies.

“After the magnificent partnership between Rohit Sharma and skipper Kohli had been broken, it was expected that Rahul would come in to bat. He would have had time to settle down and get his eye in. Instead, it was Hardik Pandya who was sent in earlier. It didn’t make much of a difference as Sharma got out next over so Rahul came in but never looked settled and he once again failed to pick Akila Dananjaya’s wrong one. It is understandable to keep the faith in a player but not at the expense of an in-form batsman who has done nothing wrong to be sitting out,” he added in his column.

The Indian team made as many as four changes in the playing XI for the final ODI with Ajinkya Rahane, Kedar Jadhav, Yuzvendra Chahal and Bhuvneshwar Kumar making their way back into the team.