India’s veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has defended Indian team management’s decision to rest Virat Kohli and skipper Rohit Sharma in the ODIs against the West Indies. The duo played in the first ODI at Barbados but they were rested for the final two games of the series.
In fact, even with the series on the line at 1-1, the team’s think tank decided to keep Rohit and Virat Kohli away from selection. Rohit and Virat were rested in order to give youngsters their deserved chances before the Asia Cup and the all-important World Cup.
Interestingly, Rohit Sharma demoted himself to number seven in the opening ODI of the series whereas Virat Kohli didn’t get to bat in the first game.
As these two veterans were rested, India gave chances to Ishan Kishan, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Axar Patel and Sanju Samson.
“So many players are recovering at the NCA. (Jasprit) Bumrah is back after a long break. Prasidh Krishna also made a return after an injury break. It seems that people are faulting team management just for the sake of it,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
“Some (people) were shocked because we lost to a team that didn’t qualify for the World Cup. Many people think that India’s only job in international cricket is to win the World Cup. People think India are favourites to win the World Cup because of the IPL,” Ashwin said.
Ashwin feels India’s Test team will undergo a transition phase very soon and they will need to be patient for the positive results.
“We are playing Test cricket really well. But we will go through a transition very soon, and things won’t be easy during that phase,” he said.
Meanwhile, England has adopted Bazball under Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes and have also found success with their aggressive approach. However, Ashwin admitted that such a strategy will not be successful for India as the players will be criticised if they don’t get the desired results.
“Let us assume India is adopting Bazball and assume a player throws his bat at everything like Harry Brook and gets out and we lose two Test matches. What will we do? Will we back the Bazball and the players? We will drop at least four players from our playing XI.”
“That’s how our culture has always been. It works for them (England) because their management is fully in sync with this style of play, their selectors back the players to play this way.”
“In fact, even their crowd and Test match-watching public are backing the team in this process. But we can’t do this,” the ace spinner said.
Ashwin added that Hindsight doesn’t work in sports and they have to live in the present to get the desired results.
“Winning a world cup is not easy…just because we play a certain player or drop a certain player, we can’t win. All of us are hindsight kings. Hindsight doesn’t work here.”
India will now take on West Indies in five-match T20I series.
