Former Indian opening batter Sadagoppan Ramesh has slammed the Indian team management and selection committee, led by Ajit Agarkar, for their inconsistency in selection. Notably, his comments came right after India’s 3-0 win over Zimbabwe.
Speaking on his Instagram handle, Ramesh has stated that young batters like Abhishek Sharma have been given a longer rope despite poor form, while aged players like Sanju Samson have been removed from the playing XI after a few poor scores.
Moreover, in the recently concluded three-match ODI series against England, the veteran opening batter Rohit Sharma was also under severe pressure from retirement speculations after failing in the initial two games of the series.
“The issue is with the selection parameters. It feels like the management wait for players under 25 to succeed. Whereas for those at 35 or more, they seem to wait for one failure. It’s clear that age is playing a major factor in selection. Even a consistent 35-year-old seems to be told to make way for an inconsistent 25-year-old,” Ramesh said on his Instagram handle.
“Abhishek Sharma was the World’s No.1 ranked batter entering the T20 World Cup. But in 18 innings since, he averages only 18. He has only three half-centuries in this stretch, which is a major worry. Samson was extraordinary in the T20 World Cup, yet, dropped after just three failures. Similarly, there was also a high possibility of Rohit Sharma being dropped had he failed in the Lord’s ODI. In the meantime, Abhishek Sharma has silently had a massive slip,” he added.
Furthermore, Ramesh has stated that if a T20 contest is conducted between a team full of players above 30 and a team full of youngsters, the former would come out on top quite comfortably.
“A T20 game between a team full of players above 30 and a team full of youngsters that the management feels is the future would be revealing. The first team would have Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Sanju Samson, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Bhuvneshwar Kumar. A three- or five-match series would showcase consistency and the team with the 30+ players will surely emerge victorious,” Ramesh concluded.
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