Harbhajan Singh has taken a dig at the Indian team-management over their much-talked about decision of leaving out Ravichandran Ashwin from the playing eleven for the ongoing ICC WTC Final against Australia at the Oval in London.
Team India’s decision to drop the spinner has been met with severe criticism and it has only increased after the way the pitch behaved in the first two days. The Indian team-management went into the game with four seamers and it did not take them long to realise that the conditions were not as favorable for the pacers as they were expecting.
Ashwin is currently the number one Test bowler in the world and is also India’s leading wicket-taker in WTC 2021-23 cycle. However, his performance and ranking were not enough to find a spot in the Indian playing XI for the WTC final, much to everyone’s utter surprise including Harbhajan Singh.
“The game is for five days so you have to choose your bowlers according to those five days. Ashwin is a proven performer, four seamers are a bit too much. Day four, day five are as important as day one. It is also important how you finish the race,” Harbhajan Singh told PTI.
“May be the management did not think too much about it and went ahead with four seamers which is way too many. It was still understandable if someone of the caliber of Mohammed Siraj and Mohammed Shami was sitting out, then it would have still been okay (to play four pacers),” added the former India spinner.
Harbhajan Singh on Ashwin decision:
Speaking further, Harbhajan Singh said that India should have picked Ashwin while choosing between him and Shardul Thakur. He also opined that playing two spinners and three seamers instead of four would have been a better combination for India.
“Maybe management thought the conditions were more in favour of the seamers. You needed to take a call between Shardul or Ashwin. It is hard on Ashwin to sit out even after taking so many wickets.
Would have been better to play Ashwin and play two-spinners instead of four seamers, even though wicket was green on day one,” said Harbhajan.