Sunil Gavaskar openly criticises Indian team’s decision making

The India team‘s batting frailties came to the fore at the wrong time and as a result, the side lost its second consecutive World Cup semi-final. The Indian fans were stunned as their team was looking omnipotent in the group stages. The new ball did all the damage as half of the side was back in the hut before the scoreboard read 100. Though the veteran MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja kept the side in the run-chase it was always going to be a difficult task for them against a quality New Zealand bowling attack.

Following the loss, a lot of questions were raised to skipper Virat Kohli including the team management’s baffling decision to demote Dhoni in such an important game. Now even the legendary, Sunil Gavaskar has questioned some of the decisions made by the team management amidst for the entirety of the tournament. One of them being the omission of Ambati Rayudu right ahead of the World Cup.

Too late to comment

At the start of 2019, the Hyderabad batsman was the front-runner, expected to solve India’s middle-order problems. Then out of the blue Vijay Shankar made his debut and played a couple of good knocks which got him World Cup ticket. During this time Rayudu suffered a dip in form which resulted in his exclusion. It became a national debate but the selectors stuck to their original choices and kept him in the stand-by list.

Even though a couple of players got injured during the series Rayudu was not included in the squad. After that, the right-hander retired with no hope of playing for India in the near future.

“Let’s face, there have been a lot of baffling decisions over the last couple of years. Ambati Rayudu for example – he should have been brought here,” Gavaskar said while talking on StarSports.

He further blamed the Indian selectors for the inclusion of Mayank Agarwal in the squad. In his viewpoint, Agarwal was not the correct choice as he has not played a single ODI in his career. Gavaskar also came down heavily on neglecting the players from the stand-by list.

Also read – World Cup 2019: Tough for Sourav Ganguly to understand why MS Dhoni batted at No.7 in the semi-final

“Why and how can you explain to me you bring in a Mayank Agarwal? He hasn’t played a single ODI as yet. He just came before the Sri Lanka game, the last league game, (so) you want to him to make his debut in a semifinals or a final in case a slot was open? Why not bring in an Ambati Rayudu, who is your standby? Very disappointing to see what happened yesterday,” the 70-year-old added.