Former Indian batsman Virender Sehwag has targeted the team management of the current Indian team saying that the selection policy is partial towards batsmen and bowlers. His comments came after India backed KL Rahul despite his recent failures while sidelining Yuzvendra Chahal after a couple of bad outings in the T20I series.
Virender Sehwag alleged that the batsmen got more chances in the team compared to the bowlers even after a dip in form. Rahul, who had flopped in the first four T20Is before being dropped from the 5th T20I, was selected in the XI for the first ODI at the expense of Pant. Sehwag compared the cases of the two players to claim there was ‘partiality’ in the selection parameters for the batsmen and the bowlers in the team.
“You snub bowlers after one game, but you gave 4 matches to KL Rahul then sat him out in the 5th game. So, if you give bowlers that many chances there will be poor games for them too. If this was [Jasprit] Bumrah and he had 4 moderate outings, will you have thought to exclude Bumrah as well? No, you would have said ‘he’s a good bowler, he will make a comeback.’,” Sehwag said on Cricbuzz.
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Virender Sehwag Questions Partiality In Indian Selection
Meanwhile, Sehwag said that Chahal was dropped despite being India’s top wicket-taker in T20I cricket. He further said that both the batsman and the bowlers despite being in the ICC rankings are made to sit out.
“Yuzvendra Chahal is your top T20 bowler, he gives you wickets, and he got 2-3 bad games and now is out of the team. One is a top bowler in ICC rankings and other is the top batter, so why partiality in them? I don’t understand this concept,” he added.
Chahal is currently ranked 23rd in the ICC ODI rankings for bowlers. Only Jasprit Bumrah (3) and Kuldeep Yadav (21) are ahead of him in the bowling rankings in the 50-over format. This Indian ODI squad is without the likes of Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja in this ODI series as well.
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