On Monday, the Board of Control for Cricket in India announced their squad for the upcoming ICC World Cup 2019. As expected, there are quite a few surprising names on the chart. Vijay Shankar is one such interesting selection, who got the nod ahead of a regular player Ambat Rayudu. Meanwhile, Gautam Gambhir isn’t impressed with that whatsoever.
Speaking of the inclusion, MSK Prasad recently quoted that Vijay Shankar is a two-dimensional player, who not only bats but also gives an extra option for Virat Kohli while leading the side. His bowling is the only aspect, which brought him into the ship while Rayudu is unfortunate to miss out.
I am not a fan of statistics – Gautam Gambhir
Speaking of the same, the former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir quoted that it was unfortunate to see Ambati Rayudu is being judged on his IPL form. He believes that Rayudu got the ingredients in him to deliver for the team on a big stage.
“It is disgusting to see that he is being judged more on his IPL form and less on his overall skill-set. I am not a big fan of statistics as they never tell the whole story,” Gambhir wrote in his column for The Times of India on Sunday.
He also highlighted the fact that skill-set is the major aspect of the game rather than the numbers on the paper. Gambhir strongly believes that Rayudu should have been for India in the middle-order. He also gave Andre Russell as the primary example.
“Before we played him in 2014, Russell had only 58 runs to show in seven games for his earlier franchise Delhi Daredevils. If these dry numbers were the only criterion, Russell should have been fishing somewhere in Jamaica. In short, Rayudu had a strong case to be in the (World Cup) team.”
I am surprised that we are going with 3 fast bowlers:
India went with Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammed Shami for the upcoming event. They felt that Hardik Pandya and Vijay Shankar would do the job. However, Gambhir feels that it was a surprising call, as England pitches would support the fast bowlers.
“I must say I am surprised by the fact that we are going in with just three specialist fast bowlers,” Gambhir wrote. “I tried to visit and then revisit this fact but I have still not been able to get my head around these selections. Have always believed that whatever be the format, it is the batsmen who set up the games and bowlers are the ones who win them. Therefore, I feel we are a little light in the fast-bowling department. Navdeep in place of Shankar.”
Well, it would be interesting to see how things would pan out for the Indian National Cricket Team. For now, they still got the time to make a change to their final squad that travels England.