Ravichandran Ashwin has suffered for speaking his mind at team meetings: Sunil Gavaskar

Former Indian skipper Sunil Gavaskar thrashed the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for their indifferent behaviour and rules for different players in the Indian side. Gavaskar also took a dig at the team management for keeping T Natarajan as a net bowler in Tests and thus refraining him from seeing his new-born daughter for the first time while the Indian skipper Virat Kohli is allowed to miss the last three Test games against Australia to be there during the birth of his child.

Gavaskar believes that India’s veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin always has to fight for his place in the team despite producing match-winning spells for India as the spinner has the guts to oppose the decisions by team management and speak his mind out. The former captain further added that Ashwin would have been dropped from the team for the second Test against Australia if he wouldn’t have picked up four wickets in first innings.

“For far too long Ashwin has suffered not for his bowling ability of which only the churlish will have doubts, but for his forthrightness and speaking his mind at meetings where most others just nod even if they don’t agree. If Ashwin doesn’t take heaps of wickets in one game he is invariably sidelined for the next one. That does not happen to established batsmen though,” Sunil Gavaskar wrote in his column for Sportstar.

Sunil Gavaskar unhappy with T Natarajan being named as a net bowler for Tests

Further, Sunil Gavaskar seemed upset with the Indian board for stopping T Natarajan in Australia for the Test series as the net bowler. Natarajan had become a father for the first time during the IPL playoffs but he hasn’t seen his daughter since he travelled with the team for the Australia series. Also, he will now be able to meet his new-born daughter only after the third week of January 2021.

Speaking about the same, Gavaskar said that BCCI should have allowed Natarajan to travel back to India after the white-ball series as Virat Kohli has also been granted paternity leave to be with his wife Anushka Sharma during the birth of their first child. The veteran batsman wasn’t pleased with the different approach of the authorities towards two different players.

“(T Natarajan) had become a father for the first time even as the IPL playoffs were going on. He was asked to stay on for the (Australia) Test series but not as a part of the team but as a net bowler. Imagine that. A match winner, albeit in another format, being asked to be a net bowler,” Gavaskar said.

“He will thus return home only after the series ends in the third week of January and get to see his daughter for the first time then. And there is the captain (Virat Kohli) going back after the first Test for the birth of his first child,” he added.