In the aftermath of the sad demise of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, the cinema fraternity has been subjected to nepotism, and not trying to promote the right talents, providing more opportunities to the ‘star kids’.
However, the concept of nepotism hasn’t affected the game of cricket, thus far. Selection for the Indian cricket team, in recent years, has been strictly performance-based.
Therefore, fans have seen Mahendra Singh Dhoni from Ranchi, or Hardik Pandya from Baroda, representing the Indian team at the highest level.
There were cries of nepotism when Pranav Dhanawade slammed a 1009 run knock, still could not make it to the U-15 level in Mumbai cricket. But, Arjun Tendulkar, son of ‘Master Blaster’ Sachin Tendulkar, made his way into the team, ahead of Dhanawade.
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Also, Rohan Gavaskar, given a stint at the highest level, raised a few voices for nepotism in cricket.
Now, popular broadcaster Aakash Chopra has shrugged off all allegations of nepotism reaching the game of cricket in India.
“If you see the bigger picture, Rohan Gavaskar was the son of Sunil Gavaskar, if one has to go by nepotism, Rohan should have played a lot of cricket, but it did not happen this way. When he eventually ended up playing for India, he did so because he had a good run with Bengal in domestic cricket,” Chopra said in his YouTube channel.
Moreover, it was found later that Arjun had decent numbers to back his selection, whereas Dhanawade’s knock came against a questionable standard of bowling and in bizarre field dimensions.
“Sunil Gavaskar did not make his son play for Mumbai; the same thing can be said about Sachin Tendulkar’s son, Arjun, he is not having anything served to him on a platter. At the highest level, there is no compromise. I do not think nepotism is that relevant in cricket as compared to the other industries,” concluded Chopra.
