Cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar, in his column for MidDay, questioned Team India’s Shreyas Iyer and Jasprit Bumrah, as well as Ishan Kishan, for not playing with doubts surrounding their fitness.
“The BCCI announced the list of the contracted players a few days back and as expected, Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan were excluded from the contract list presumably for not playing Ranji Trophy cricket,” Gavaskar wrote in his column.
“Nobody still knows why Kishan has not turned up for Jharkhand in the Ranji Trophy, …Iyer was in the Mumbai team to play the semi-finals of the Ranji Trophy,” he added.
It was not a happy return for Iyer though as he was dismissed for just three runs.
Gavaskar recalled that: “Iyer had also played in the Ranji Trophy game as asked by the Indian team management just before this Test series started, so it’s not as if he has refused to play the Ranji Trophy at all. He did miss the quarter-finals, but that was also the time he had informed the team management of his inability to play the third Test match due to some pain in his back if he batted for some length of time.”
“However, the trainers at the NCA certified that his markers were clean and they found him fit to play. That seemed to have gone against Iyer. Threshold of pain is an individual thing and no trainer can judge that,” Gavaskar wrote.
Turning his attention to Bumrah, Gavaskar questioned the intensity of the Indian pacer’s injury after he opted for rest instead of playing the fourth Test.
“Despite bowling just 15 overs in the first innings and then eight overs in the second innings of the third Test at Rajkot, Bumrah was rested for Ranchi presumably on the trainer’s recommendation. Don’t forget there was a nine-day break between the second Test and third Test match and then bowling 23 overs in the entire game is not tiring at all, so why was Bumrah rested?”
“After the fourth Test there was going to be another eight-days break before the final Test match; enough time for supremely fit athletes to recover and be ready to play for the country. The fourth Test also was a crucial game as, if England had won that, the final Test would have been the decider. So, whether it was the NCA or Bumrah who took the call, it wasn’t in the Indian team’s immediate interest,” Gavaskar wrote.
Gavaskar also highlighted the eagerness to play of youngsters and was glad that they did well.
“That young Akash Deep bowled splendidly to offset Bumrah’s absence, once again showed that it doesn’t matter if the big names don’t play there will always be young guns who would be only too happy and as the skipper Rohit Sharma said, be hungry to play for India and to bear any hardship for the honour and privilege of playing for your country,” Gavaskar wrote.
Drawing parallels between India’s series wins over England at home and away to Australia, he said: “Brisbane and Ranchi, both fourth Test matches of a series, should always be written in letters of gold in the history of Indian cricket as examples of how sheer love for the country can overcome any challenges.”
Comments
0 comment