Years ago, in 1988, Mohinder Amarnath had called the Indian selectors “a bunch of jokers.” That led to his undoing. The legend’s career ended when he expressed no regrets and refused to apologize.
Now, years later, another stalwart of the game, Sunil Gavaskar has slammed the selection committee. He recently called the MSK Prasad-led panel “lame ducks” as they did not had any formal meeting to re-appoint skipper Virat Kohli.
Here’s what Gavaskar wrote in his column for a leading newspaper:
“That they selected the team for West Indies without first having a meeting to select the captain brings up the question of whether Virat Kohli is the captain of the team at his or the selection committee’s pleasure.”
“To the best of our knowledge, his (Kohli’s) appointment was till the World Cup. After that, it was incumbent on the selectors to meet even if it was for five minutes for his reappointment,” he added.
However, the selection committee has named Kohli as captain for the upcoming Windies tour.
Furthermore, the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) made a statement that raised quite a few eyebrows. They said that they would not assess the team’s World Cup performance, and only the manager’s report will be taken into consideration.
The former Indian captain also questioned how Kohli is being allowed to pick his team.
“Speaking of lame ducks, the Indian selection committee appears to be one. After the reappointment, he (captain) gets invited to the meeting for his views on selecting the players for the team. By bypassing the procedure, the message that goes out is that while the players like Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik get dropped after below expectation performance, the captain continues despite much below par expectations where the team did not even reach the finals.”
“This is probably one of the last selections for this committee as a new one will get appointed soon. Hopefully, that will have players of stature who will not get bullied and be able to tell the team management that their job is to play with the team chosen by the selectors,” he signed off.
