Former Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag has expressed his disappointment over the selection policy after star spinner Yuzvendra Chahal was dropped from the Indian squad for the first ODI against England.
The first ODI marked the debut of Prasidh Krishna and Krunal Pandya, and also the return of Kuldeep Yadav in the ODI team. However, Chahal, who struggled in the T20I series to get wickets, was dropped from the squad.
Recently, while talking to Cricbuzz, Virender Sehwag slammed the selection policy of team management and said that there may be a difference in the selection criteria between batsmen and bowlers. He said:
“You snub bowlers after one game, but you gave 4 matches to KL Rahul then sat him out in the 5th game. So, if you give bowlers only that many chances, they will have poor performances,”
Sehwag also accused team India of being partial in selection matters and gave an example of Jasprit Bumrah. He said:
“If this was [Jasprit] Bumrah and he had 4 moderate outings, will you have thought to exclude Bumrah as well? No, you would have said ‘he’s a good bowler, he will make a comeback.”
Sehwag was all praises for Chahal as he called him India’s top T20 bowler. He questioned the difference in selection criteria by team management while backing Chahal. He said:
“Yuzvendra Chahal is your top T20 bowler, he gives you wickets, and he got 2-3 bad games and now is out of the team. One is a top bowler in ICC rankings and the other is the top batter, so why the difference in selection criteria between them? I don’t understand this concept,”
He added:
“Yes, if you have lost a series because of a bowler pair because they are not taking wickets, like it was Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin once. We lost the Champions Trophy final and in that tournament, the bowlers didn’t take many wickets in the middle overs. So then there was a shift that these two need a break and new wrist spinners need to be tried because wrist spinners are better.
“Now, you have removed wrist-spinner Chahal and have brought back a finger spinner. I think it’s also because to strengthen the batting,”
Furthermore, to back his allegations of partiality in the selection process, Sehwag gave the example of KL Rahul. He pointed out that Rahul was given a chance ahead of Pant despite warming the bench for the 5th T20I and failing to perform in the previous 4 T20Is. Comparing both the cases, Sehwag said:
“You snub bowlers after one game, but you gave 4 matches to KL Rahul then sat him out in the 5th game. So, if you give bowlers that many chances there will be poor games for them too. If this was [Jasprit] Bumrah and he had 4 moderate outings, will you have thought to exclude Bumrah as well? No, you would have said ‘he’s a good bowler, he will make a comeback,”
