Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar has called out the Gautam Gambhir-led management over their team selections against England. India are trailing England 1-2 after 3 Test matches, and are on the verge of losing the 4th match of the series in Manchester as well.
If India do lose in Manchester, this will mark the 3rd straight Test series defeat under Gautam Gambhir. India have already lost 0-3 to New Zealand and 1-3 to Australia before this. Speaking on ESPNcricinfo, Manjrekar pointed out Gambhir’s affinity for selecting all-rounders in the Test line-up, instead of specialists, and called out the coach for his horrid selection calls.
The former player stated that Gambhir’s affinity for playing the fourth seamer made little sense as they were not bowling a lot of overs in the first place. Manjrekar argued his case by using Shardul Thakur’s example, stating that the seamer had bowled only 27 overs in the 2 Tests so far and had not picked up enough wickets. Similarly, Nitish Reddy, before getting injured, had bowled only 27 overs in 2 Tests.
“What is coming through for everyone, despite India’s heroism with the bat, is that the selections have been quite poor. We saw what Shardul Thakur was capable of in the first Test match, but despite that he was picked again. And we saw the repeat of that inclination to have a bowler who can bat a bit. I think that thought has to be dumped, and India in this Test match needed a pure batter,” Sanjay Manjrekar said on Day 4 of the Manchester Test.
Manjrekar said that the management has constantly kept talking about picking up 20 wickets in every innings but has simply refused to play Kuldeep Yadav in the series. Kuldeep, who last played against New Zealand in Bengaluru, is sitting on the sidelines due to Gambhir’s preference towards Washington Sundar.
“KL Rahul and Shubman Gill have tried their best to salvage the situation, but a pure batter in the team would have been handy, plus a pure wicket-taker. It has been hard to understand why India look to get players who have two skills rather than just go for quality. Kuldeep Yadav not playing the whole series tells you the approach of this Indian team management. They say that India need 20 wickets, but it’s going to be difficult to convince me, because if that was the case, Kuldeep would have played by now,” Manjrekar concluded.
