'Politicians should stay away from cricket' - BCCI vice-president Rajeev Shukla gets trolled after criticizing Team India's middle order

The Indian team on Monday pulled off a draw from the jaws of defeat against Australia in the third Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground. The middle-order stood at the crease for long periods of time and ensured the visitors got a historic draw to keep the series levelled. Chesteshwar Pujara, Hanuma Vihari, Rishabh Pant, and Ravichandran Ashwin battled for significant amounts of time in the middle to ensure India drew the Test. 

However, some fans and cricket lovers were baffled by the way Ashwin and Vihari batted during the last session. The duo ducked and defended almost everything which was thrown at them from the Australian bowling attack. Their partnership lasted almost 43 overs and yielded just 62 runs. The purists of the game would actually agree with the way they batted and defended everything. However, the team received criticism from a place that they didn’t expect. 

The vice-president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Rajeev Shukla, took to Twitter to express his opinion about the result. According to the 61-year-old, if the middle order performed a little better than what they did, India would have won this match. He wrote, “Actually the middle could have performed little better and we would have won the match”

Twitter not happy with Rajeev Shukla’s comment

As soon as he put this tweet, fans of the Indian team started to troll him. His comments about the Indian team’s result seemed immature, considering the context of the match situation.

Here are some of the tweets by fans in reply to Shukla’s comments

India keep it 1-1 and set up a final battle at the Gabba

The India team were chasing 407 runs to win the Test match. In the history of Test cricket, only on four occasions has a team chased over 400 runs successfully in the fourth innings. Hence, the total was daunting to start with. On top of that, Ravindra Jadeja had broken his thumb and was unlikely to bat while Rishabh Pant had an injury on his elbow. To make things worse, Vihari suffered a hamstring injury while batting. With only five (technically four) wickets in hand, Ashwin and Vihari got on and planned to defend everything that came along their way. 

The effort from these two will be remembered for years to come and it is shocking to see Rajeev Shukla being of the opinion that their effort wasn’t good. It could be demoralizing for the Indian team, coming from one of the most senior officials of the board.