Former Indian opener Kris Srikkanth slammed team management and the leadership group after India suffered a 0-4 series loss against England. India lost the fifth and final game of the series by 56 runs at Rose Bowl, Southampton on Saturday.
England posted a par score of 257 runs on the board after Jos Buttler and Harry Brook scored 131 and 95 runs respectively. The visitors could only manage 201 runs after fifties from Ishan Kishan and Tilak Varma.
Srikkanth questioned Gautam Gambhir and co. for making so many changes to the playing XI on a consistent basis.
Srikkanth said on his YouTube Channel, “They’ll just say transition for every format. It’s all just manipulation of the media and fans. Even in transition, you should pick talented players, have the right selection criteria and have the correct approach. Instead, you just sit and eat cashew nuts and peas in the dressing room.”
“If this is the way the players are going to be treated and groomed with knee-jerk reactions, everybody should be changed. The players are getting dropped immediately so the same yardstick should apply to Gautam Gambhir and Shreyas Iyer also as captain and coach. How are you both performing in your roles? Same as the players you drop.”
On the other hand, prodigy batter Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was dropped after returning with scores 14, 13 and 15 in his first three T20I innings. Srikkanth slammed the team management’s decision of not backing the youngster in the final game.
“You drop him (Suryavanshi) for struggling against Archer. Who didn’t struggle against Archer in this team? I am very upset with the way they are treating him. This is not the way to groom a youngster. He should have been told that he wouldn’t be dropped for ten innings and just to play his game,” said Srikkanth (via the aforementioned source).
“Actually Suryavanshi should have played the two Ireland matches by resting Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson one game each. After seeing how he (Suryavanshi) played, he should have not played against England at all and played only the Zimbabwe series. Now they’ve mixed everything up and ruined the entire team.”
India and England will next take on each other in a three-match ODI series, starting Tuesday at Edgbaston, Birmingham.
