Ganguly calls for consistency in selection
The selectors have hit the transition button by excluding Cheteshwar Pujara and Ganguly wants the panel and team management to communicate decisions properly.
Ajinkya Rahane
NEW DELHI: Sourav Ganguly finds it baffling that Ajinkya Rahane has been handed Test vice-captaincy after spending nearly 18 months on the sidelines as the former India skipper called for “consistency and continuity” in selection.
Rahane, 35, was out of favour for one-and-a-half years but was India’s best batter in the recent World Test Championship final against Australia, with scores of 89 and 46 at the Oval in London. His comeback just one-match old, Rahane was appointed as the vice-captain for the West Indies series by the national selection committee. Was it not ideal to groom someone like Shubman Gill for the role?
“Yeah, I think so,” Ganguly told PTI. “I will not say it is a step backward. You have been out for 18 months, then you play a Test and you become a vice-captain. I do not understand the thought process behind it. There is Ravindra Jadeja, who has been there for a long time and is a certainty in Test matches, he is a candidate,” added Ganguly. “....but to come back and straightaway become vice-captain after 18 months, I do not understand. My only thing is that the selection should not be hot and cold. There has to be continuity and consistency.”
The selectors have hit the transition button by excluding Cheteshwar Pujara and Ganguly wants the panel and team management to communicate decisions properly.
“Selectors should have a clear idea about him (Pujara). Do they need him to play Test cricket anymore or do they want to continue with youngsters and communicate it to him? Somebody like Pujara cannot be dropped, then picked, dropped again and then picked. Same with Rahane,” Ganguly stressed.
Ganguly also praised the International Cricket Council (ICC) and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) bigwigs for good choice of ODI World Cup venues.
“The BCCI and the ICC have done a great job to give correct matches to correct venues and I know that it is going to be a tremendous World Cup. I know how the BCCI organises the Indian Premier League (IPL), it will make the World Cup a spectacle,” Ganguly said.