Twitterati dumbfounded as Indian team picks Shardul Thakur for Vizag ODI against West Indies
28-year-old Thakur, who hails from Mumbai has played 1 Test, 5 ODIs and 7 T20I matches for India since making his debut in 2017.
The Indian team is taking on the West Indies side in the second ODI of the three-match series at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam. The visitors have already gone 1-0 up thanks to their commanding 8-wicket win in the first match at Chennai and the home side is now fighting to keep the series alive, as a loss here will mean a series defeat.
The Indian team has not lost an ODI series at home for quite some time now, and with that record under threat, their performance in the Chennai one-day was scrutinized a lot. The team management had banked on Shivam Dube and Kedar Jadhav bowling 10 overs in between them as the fifth and sixth bowlers. However, the decision backfired as spinners totally failed to pick any wicket in the middle overs or stem the flow of runs.
The Men in Blue were hit hard as Bhuvneshwar Kumar was found to be battling a sports hernia and Shardul Thakur was brought in the Indian squad as his replacement. Toss in Vizag one-day match went in the Kieron Pollard’s way once again and he opted to bowl first, given that chasing the runs is an easy task than defending on Indian pitches, with dew being a factor. Kohli also revealed that they had decided to make one change to the playing XI and brought in Shardul Thakur in place of Shivam Dube.
This proved to be a good choice given Indian team missed a bowler in the last game, but the choice of Shardul Thakur proved to be difficult one for the Team India fans on Twitter to swallow given that they had the chance of bringing in Yuzvendra Chahal as well, who had done well in the T20I series before this 50-over encounters.
28-year-old Thakur, who hails from Mumbai has played 1 Test, 5 ODIs and 7 T20I matches for India since making his debut in 2017. He has a total of 6 ODI wickets and 8 T20I wickets, while his only Test so far ended up in him being injured after bowling 10 balls, against the West Indies in 2018.
He was already a surprise pick to replace Bhuvneshwar in the Indian squad. But Kohli and co. going for him in the Vizag ODI, led to the fans trolling Thakur to the fullest.
Here are some of the most brutal tweets:
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