As unbelievable as it may sound, the KL Rahul saga involving former India cricketers Aakash Chopra and Venkatesh Prasad has reached a rather unpleasant stage. After Chopra questioned Prasad's motive of targeting a player in the middle of a series, only for the ex-India fast bowler to retaliate and launch a fresh jibe at Rahul through stats, the former India opening batter uploaded a video on YouTube this morning. In the 12-minute-long video, Chopra pointed out how Prasad did not care to mention the statistics and numbers surrounding other players – potential replacements for Rahul – after the India batter was stripped of vice-captaincy following a poor string of scores in recent Tests.
"He (Prasad) didn't even write about Shubman's home numbers. Because you are showing averages, he has played 11 innings at home in which his average is 26.3. I am saying that you shouldn't judge Shubman Gill with averages. He is a damn good player. He is a better player than that but use the same yardstick for the others. He has shown 14 overseas innings in which he has an average of 37, in which he has conveniently not spoken about SENA countries. If we see only SENA, his numbers will also not be that good. His away numbers are looking good because of Bangladesh," Chopra had said.
While he did mention terms such as 'with all due respect' and 'my friend' towards Venkatesh, it seems as if Prasad has not taken the video lightly. In a counter-attacking series of threads, Prasad went the extra yard and dug out an 11-year-old tweet that Chopra had once shared to prove his point. As per a tweet posted in 2012, Chopra had written: "Rahane doesn't make it to the XI. And 'talented' Rohit Sharma does". And reacting to it, Prasad highlighted that if Rohit at 24, deserved a sarcastic take from Chopra, then his point of view, which he claims does not stem from any sort of 'personal agendas' towards Rahul, should be justified too.
{{/usCountry}}While he did mention terms such as 'with all due respect' and 'my friend' towards Venkatesh, it seems as if Prasad has not taken the video lightly. In a counter-attacking series of threads, Prasad went the extra yard and dug out an 11-year-old tweet that Chopra had once shared to prove his point. As per a tweet posted in 2012, Chopra had written: "Rahane doesn't make it to the XI. And 'talented' Rohit Sharma does". And reacting to it, Prasad highlighted that if Rohit at 24, deserved a sarcastic take from Chopra, then his point of view, which he claims does not stem from any sort of 'personal agendas' towards Rahul, should be justified too.
{{/usCountry}}In a long six-tweet thread, Prasad started off by first calling Chopra's comments uncalled for and accuses the former batter of misquoting him "So my friend Aakash Chopra after making a vile video on YouTube this morning where he calls me an agenda peddler, conveniently and cleverly misquotes me, removes Mayank's average of 70 at home, wants to gag views which are not in line with what he believes but wanted Rohit out. I have no agenda against any player, maybe there are others who have. Difference of opinion is fine but calling contrary views as apna personal agenda and Twitter par mat laayein, [it] is funny for Aakash, considering he has made a great career by airing his views," he tweeted.
In the tweet, Prasad made a point to stress that he has always maintained a just stance – be it the time he felt that Sarfaraz Khan was undeservingly left out or Kuldeep Yadav was unfairly benched. And then brought the limelight back to Chopra's old tweet, where he had taken a shot at Rohit Sharma for being given repeated chances but not Ajinkya Rahane.
"I have nothing against KL or any other player, my voice has been against unfair selection and different yardsticks for performers. Be it Sarfaraz or Kuldeep, have voiced based on merit. But it was disappointing to see Aakash calling it personal agenda," he further tweeted.
"This is what Aakash had aired when Rohit was 24 with 4 years in international cross. He can use sarcasm for Rohit at 24, and I cannot point out underperforming Rahul at 31 with 8 years in international cricket. Yeh bhi sahi hai (That's cleverly fair)".
Lastly, Prasad respectfully disagreed with Chopra's views that his tweet could have caused the Indian team distraction during a Test series as big as the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and stated that Chopra be better off making videos that cause a false narrative.
"And the argument that we should not criticise a player in an ongoing match personally doesn't make sense to me. That doesn’t affect the players performance. Most players don't read views even after the match and no player can read in between match as phones are deposited," the tweet further added. "I admire Aakash for the hard work he puts on his YouTube channel but calling a different view point as agenda because it doesn’t suit his narrative is poor. There is no bitterness between us and since his video was in public domain wanted to put my point out here. Best wishes," he concluded.