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Cricket Players'Apart from bulking up individual career stats…': Gavaskar goes ballistic over India's squad for West Indies tour
Gavaskar feels that against a struggling team such as West Indies, the time was ideal for Team India to try out a few fresh faces.
India's squads for the West Indies tour that were announced last Friday were largely on the expected lines barring a couple of notable surprises in the Test line-up. The two-Test series, which marks the beginning of India's campaign at the next World Test Championship cycle, was expected to signal a transition phase in Indian cricket. Young and fresh faces were expected to travel to the Caribbean but given the fact that a star-studded line-up featuring Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja will be turning up against the Windies, maybe the Indian think tank doesn't want to rush in just yet.
The squad announcement has been received with mixed reactions – some welcoming the decision, others… not so much, out of which the legendary Sunil Gavaskar belongs to the second category. The former India captain feels that against a struggling team such as West Indies, the time was ideal for Team India to try out some of the next crop of players while adding that picking the established stars would offer zero benefit other than beefing up their individual records.
"West Indies are no more the force they were in the last century as can be seen by the fact that they are currently playing in Zimbabwe to try and qualify for the ODI World Cup that they won twice in the 70s. So picking some younger players for the Test series would have made more sense," Gavaskar wrote in his column for Mid-Day.
"What is Indian cricket going to learn by picking the same seniors for the two Test matches who have now failed to deliver in two World Test Championship finals. How does it even matter if they score heaps of runs and take a bunch of wickets in the Caribbean apart from it bulking up their individual career stats."
Why are big players not rested, asks Gavaskar
Gavaskar, the first batter to reach the 10000-run mark in the history of Test cricket further mentioned that with a 50-over World Cup starting in less than four months, India could have really done by resting some of their key and big players. With India slipping again in the final of an ICC tournament, their full focus should be to bring home the World Cup, and for that if some of the star players are needed to be given an extended break then so be it, he asserted.
"More importantly, the seniors who are certainties for the World Cup in October could have done with a bit of rest after the busy season they have had over the last six months. With the World Cup in mind, they should focus only on white-ball cricket and prepare for what promises to be an exciting World Cup," Gavaskar mentioned.
