On India’s ‘below par performance’ at World Cup, Sanjay Manjrekar disagrees with Sunil Gavaskar

Former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar had a torrid time during the recently held cricket World Cup after he called spinner all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja a “bits and pieces” cricketer. Almost everybody, including Jadeja himself, had lashed back at Manjrekar with the left-arm cricketer even accusing him as one suffering from “verbal diarrhoea”.

A few weeks after the showpiece event ended, however, Manjrekar got an opportunity to set things in order and another former batsman Sunil Gavaskar deserved thanks for that. Gavaskar recently expressed his displeasure over the India selection committee and also captain Virat Kohli over the continued choice of the latter as the national skipper.

In a column, Gavaskar questioned the procedure of retaining Kohli as the captain without the selectors even having a review meeting as per the norm. He blasted the selection panel members led by MSK Prasad as “lame ducks” and even called India’s performance at the World Cup as “much below par”. India dominated the league stage of the tournament but fell in the knock-out phase by losing to New Zealand by 18 runs.

Manjrekar, 17 years junior to Gavaskar and was once called the successor to him before Sachin Tendulkar won that race, chose to “respectfully disagree” with Gavaskar. In a tweet, he said India’s performance at the World Cup was not “much below par” as they won seven matches and lost only two with the second defeat being a narrow one. He also said that “integrity a far more important quality as selector than stature”.

India finished as the table topper in terms of points (15) from nine games with seven wins and one abandoned game. They were the only Asian side to qualify for the last four apart from Australia, England and New Zealand.

Kohli to captain India in all three formats in West Indies

After the World Cup, it was reported initially that Kohli would not go to the West Indies to play in the limited-over series but will join only for the Tests. However, he later decided to chip in for the limited over games as well saying he wanted to be with the team to lift its morale after the World Cup disappointment. India will take part in three T20Is and as many ODIs in the Caribbeans before a two-Test series which will be part of the inaugural World Test Championship kicking off on August 1 with the Ashes.