Courtesy: BCCI/Google
Sunil Gavaskar, the Indian cricket legend, criticised the team management for not utilising Ravichandran Ashwin enough in overseas Test matches throughout his international career despite being one of the best bowlers in the world. The 75-year-old remarked that the Indian team management left Ravichandran Ashwin out of the playing XI by giving the “excuse of team balance” in overseas Test matches, while the same standards didn’t apply on the batters in the side.
During the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) Test series against Australia, Ravichandran Ashwin wasn’t selected in the Indian playing XI for the first and third match, where Washington Sundar and Ravindra Jadeja were preferred over him. Meanwhile, in the second Test match of the series, which turned out to be his last international match after announcing retirement, Ravichandran Ashwin picked up only one wicket of Mitchell Marsh.
With the excuse of team balance: Sunil Gavaskar on Ravichandran Ashwin's exclusion from Indian cricket team in overseas Tests
In his latest column for Mid-Day newspaper, Sunil Gavaskar spoke about how Ravichandran Ashwin had to sit out from a lot of overseas Tests due to not fitting in the team combination, which wasn’t quite the case for the batters. He wrote, “Cricket being a batters’ game, the fact that he (Ravichandran Ashwin) invariably won the Player of the Series award didn’t win him kudos among the batters' fraternity. Every time there was even a five percent excuse to leave him out of the eleven, it was grabbed avidly with the excuse of team balance.”
Sunil Gavaskar also questioned why the same standards that applied on Ravichandran Ashwin in overseas Tests, weren’t something which the batters had to worry about in the Indian cricket team. He explained, “At home, there was no way he could be left out because the management knew that without him, they could not win the game. If the excuse was that the pitch and conditions wouldn’t suit the ICC number one-ranked bowler, how come the same excuse was not used for the batters even if they were not top-ranked by ICC, but who struggled in similar pitches and conditions?”
Moreover, after retiring from international cricket, Ravichandran Ashwin spoke to the media about how he has a lot of cricket left in him, and he would like to be a key part in the IPL plans of CSK in the next few years.
