Twitterati question Ravi Shastri for his comments on Jadeja's fitness concern

Why did the Indian team not field a spinner at Perth was a question most people were seeking an answer for as Nathan Lyon concluded the game with eight wickets. While most thought and said that the team misread the conditions coach Ravi Shastri had another story to tell. He said that while Ravi Ashwin was unavailable for the game Ravindra Jadeja was 60-70% fit thus they couldn’t go with him either.

Several former Indian cricketers, some even his former colleagues from the commentary box have been critical of the Indian team’s selection. Shastri like always had an answer for this as well. Responding to questions about criticism, he said: “millions of miles away it’s very easy to fire blanks”.

In this age of digital media, it isn’t easy to get away with anything. The head coach said Jadeja wasn’t match fit and Twitterati immediately questioned his logic, the authenticity of the answer and why at all was the all-rounder used as a substitute fielder in that case.

Talking of Jadeja, Shastri said there was “some stiffness in the shoulder”. “When you’re millions of miles away it’s very easy to fire blanks. The problem with Jadu [Jadeja] is that he had taken an injection four days into coming to Australia, because of some stiffness in the shoulder and it took a while for that injection to settle down,” Ravi told reporters on Sunday.

“So when you look at Perth, we felt that he was maybe 60-70 per cent fit and that we didn’t want to risk that in Perth. If he [Jadeja] was 80 per cent fit here [MCG], he will play. He had taken an injection even in India but he played domestic cricket after that. It took longer than we expected, hence we had to be careful.

“The last thing we wanted was someone breaking down after five or 10 overs and then we are stuck for players to pick for Melbourne or Sydney. We’ll have to evaluate [Jadeja] fitness over a 24-hour period and take it one step from there, and also (evaluate) the conditions.”

Here is how the fans reacted to Ravi Shastri’s statement:

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