India legend Sunil Gavaskar has slammed the Australian selectors for their peculiar decisions in the Border-Gavaskar series. The Aussie selectors picked Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, and Mitchell Starc despite knowing the fact that the trio won’t be available for the first two Test matches.
While Hazlewood was ruled out of the entire series, Green and Starc made it to the final XI in the third Test match. In fact, Starc was not even 100% fit in the third Test match but played as a solitary main fast bowler.
Gavaskar slammed the Australian selectors, stating they should resign if they have any sense of responsibility.
“While the ex-Australian players on the various media platforms are having a real go at their players, the ones who should be the real targets are the Australian selectors,” Gavaskar wrote in his column for Sportstar.
“How can they pick three players (Hazlewood, Starc, and Cameron Green) who they knew would not be available for selection for the first two Test matches? That is, for half the series, the team management had only 13 players to pick from.
In fact, Matthew Kuhnemann was added to the Australian squad after the loss at Nagpur when Mitchell Swepson had to fly back home for the birth of his child.
Gavaskar questioned the selectors’ decision to fly in Kuhnemann despite having Ashton Agar (who is a left-arm orthodox spinner like Kuhnemann) in the squad. After the second Test match, Agar was told to travel back to Australia to take part in the Sheffield Shield.
“Then they fly in a newcomer (Matthew Kuhnemann) when they had a similar player already in the team. If they didn’t think the player in the team was good enough, why did they pick him in the first place?
“That meant the team management was picking their 11 from 12 players. Ridiculous. If they have any sense of responsibility the selectors should resign even if Australia makes a stunning comeback and win the next two Tests and level the series,” wrote Gavaskar.
The fourth Test match starts Thursday at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad.
