Not about making all happy: Sourav Ganguly slams West Indies squad selection, questions Gill's exclusion
Sourav Ganguly minces no words.
At a time when many former players don't exactly prefer crossing paths with BCCI, one of India's most successful captain Sourav Ganguly has slammed the board and selectors for the squad selected for test, ODIs and T-20s for West Indies.
Sourav Ganguly fondly known as Dada is known for his sharp, incisive commentary on cricket. Also Dada back in his time was a great champion of backing players to the hilt whom he trusted. And now with Indian cricket at a crossroads after semi-final exit in the World Cup and possibly imminent departure of MS Dhoni from the team, Dada wants players to be given confidence by picking them across formats.
Also reads: 5 things we learned from the West Indies team selection
Sourav Ganguly comes from that school of thought who believes that best way to stay fit is by playing cricket. While in today's time, the World Champion England has a pretty different ODI and Test set-up including different captains, the great Australian and West Indian teams of the yore had little difference in the set-ups of teams excluding some specialists who were roped in for ODIs.
Sourav Ganguly tweeted:
He said, " Time has come for indian selectors to pick same players in all formats of the game for rhythm and confidence.. too few are playing in all formats ..great teams had consistent players ..it’s not about making all happy but picking the best for the country and be consistent. There are many in the squad who can play all formats ..surprised not to see shubman gill ..Rahane in the one day squad.."
Shubman Gill who was the highest scorer in the recently concluded five match A tour, where India A played West Indies A, missed out on being part of either of Indian team that will be touring the Caribbean islands for Tests, ODIs and T20s.
Most people thought that Gill who was part of the ODI set up in New Zealand will be included in the ODI and T20 teams. But selectors have gone for slightly more experienced hands in Manish Pandey and Shreyas Iyer.
Gill too has expressed disappointment over not getting selected and said that he thought his name would be there. Now, Sourav Ganguly has echoed what fans thought that Gill who is touted as the next big thing in Indian cricket along with Prithvi Shaw should have been in the West Indies team.
MSK Prasad said that they are trying to build the team for next year's T20 World Cup and it is hard to think Gill not being in the squad for the marquee event.
Ajinkya Rahane who is India's test vice-captain has been virtually kept away from the ODI set-up for a long time now. But as India found out in World Cup, the team doesn't have a solid middle order and very often in swinging condition it is brutally exposed if somehow the top three don't fire.
Ganguly probably wants Rahane to be in the mix in the limited overs for this reason as he is technically solid and can play the tricky overs when the ball is doing something. However, it is hard to think that the selectors would look back towards Rahane when there is already a heavy list of aspirants for the middle-order slot and many are scoring big runs and are also extremely fit.
Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja and Rishabh Pant are the only five players to be in all the three squads. This is after Rishabh Pant was not in the original World Cup squad and only got drafted as a replacement.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar has been left out of the test squad. India's spin wizards 'Kulcha' will not be seen in the T20 squad and are only together in the ODI squad. In the Test team, Kuldeep Yadav is included but Chahal is excluded from both test and T20 squads. India is fielding an extremely inexperienced bowling side in T-20s where even Bumrah will not be there. None except Bhuvi and Jadeja have the reputation of winning matches for India in the bowling line-up which will be playing the T-20 side against West Indies. The selectors are clearly experimenting with some of the fringe players to check whether they can handle the pressure of the big stage, but Dada wants the best team to be out there in the park.
Maybe the new selection committee which will be constituted soon will listen to Sourav's advice.