Indian legend Sunil Gavaskar has heavily criticised the Indian team management as well as the the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for their indifferent behaviour and rules for different players within the senior men’s team. Gavaskar alleges that the current team management is biased towards certain players and as a result there are some discriminations in the dressing room.
For instance, he puts forward the issued of holding back youngster T Natarajan (not a part of the Test squad) as a net bowler and refraining him from seeing his new-born first child (his daughter was born during the IPL) while the Indian skipper Virat Kohli has been allowed to miss the upcoming three important Tests in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
“[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.
“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,” Gavaskar wrote in his column for Sportstar.
Taking more dig at the management the former Indian captain added that Ravichandran Ashwin has been a victim of this unfair discrimination. Gavaskar believes the off-spinner always has to fight hard for his place in the XI despite producing match-winning performances under testing circumstances.
“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,” Gavaskar wrote.
Meanwhile, after facing a shambolic defeat within two and a half days in the Adelaide Test, a Kohli-less India will now play the next match from Boxing Day at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground.