The Indian team has been making conscious efforts for experimenting in the ODI series against Sri Lanka. The series so far has seen changes in personnel as well in the batting order. Given the fact that the opposition is not posing a great challenge, it has allowed India to execute these changes and still emerge victorious.
But India’s former captain Sunil Gavaskar isn’t pleased with these changes. He feels that an in-form batsman like Ajinkya Rahane, who was the leading run-getter in the Windies ODI series, has been made to warm the benches and someone like KL Rahul, who is failing continuously, has been given an extended run.
Get fancy tattoos to get selected
He feels that the selectors are picking the fancy players in the side and all the nice guys are left out and they should also get funky hairstyles and tattoos to get picked.
“The way the selections have gone for this series, it looks like all the nice guys are being left out and they are missing out on fattening their individual career aggregates with bat or ball. Maybe they should start getting a different hairstyle and some body art done too to get picked in the team,” Sunil Gavaskar wrote in his column for The Times of India.
The owner of 34 Test hundreds was also not pleased with the changes in the batting order carried out in the 4th ODI. Hardik Pandya was sent to bat at number 4 after the dismissals of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma and Gavaskar reckons KL Rahul should have batted at that slot so that he would have spent a lot more time in the middle.
“After the magnificent partnership between Rohit Sharma and skipper Kohli had been broken, it was expected that Rahul would come in to bat. He would have had time to settle down and get his eye in. Instead, it was Hardik Pandya who was sent in earlier,” he added.
“It didn’t make much of a difference as Sharma got out next over so Rahul came in but never looked settled and he once again failed to pick Akila Dananjaya’s wrong one. It is understandable to keep the faith in a player but not at the expense of an in-form batsman who has done nothing wrong to be sitting out,” he added in his column.
