Even before the announcement of India’s 17-man Asia Cup 2023 squad and the 15-man provisional World Cup 2023 squad, a section of fans had been trending the terms “Mumbai Lobby” on Twitter and other social media platforms.
Once the Asia Cup squad was announced, this trend caught more fire because Sanju Samson was omitted while Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma found a place in the Asia Cup squad, and then Suryakumar was retained for the World Cup squad as well.
A number of fans voiced their opinions against the Indian team management, which is headed by captain Rohit Sharma, and chief selector Ajit Agarkar for their supposedly “unfair” treatment against Samson.
What does “Mumbai lobby” mean? Who are in it?
Basically, fans have been criticizing Rohit Sharma and Ajit Agarkar, both of whom are from Mumbai, for omitting Sanju Samson and selecting the Mumbai Indians duo of Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma.
While earlier only the fans of Samson used to make such comments, now they have gotten more support from the general public, many of whom believe that Rohit and Agarkar have been doing injustice to Samson.
For the past few weeks, ever since the squads were announced, fans have regularly been pointing out that Samson has a brilliant average of 55 in 12 ODI innings, which is much better than Suryakumar’s average of 24 in 25 ODI knocks, and Tilak Varma hadn’t even made his debut until the Asia Cup.
Both captain Rohit Sharma and chief selector Ajit Agarkar have been on the receiving end of huge criticism for the exclusion of Sanju Samson, something which will take more height if India fails to reach the semi-final of the World Cup, and Suryakumar fails to perform in the tournament.
Is this right? Is this “Mumbai lobby” really doing injustice to Samson?
This criticism of Rohit and Agarkar for being “unfair” and doing “injustice” with Samson is not correct. Not just the past Indian cricket captains, but also across major cricket teams in the world, captain often tend to pick and back the player in whom they see more potential – with what Suryakumar has done in the T20 format, it is not to argue that he has a bigger match-winning potential than Samson; if SKY can do what he does in T20s, just imagine what he can do in ODIs.
Further, this is not the first time an Indian captain is being accused of favoring players who are close to him or play in his IPL franchise. Earlier, Virat Kohli was accused of doing the same when he brought in the likes of Siraj and Shivam Dube from RCB to Indian team, and same was said of MS Dhoni when he picked CSK teammates Jadeja, Ashwin, and Murali Vijay in the Indian team.
So, our request for the fans is to keep faith in the captain, team management, and the selectors’ choices and back Team India as a unit for the World Cup 2023.
