Former Indian batter Subramaniam Badrinath has questioned Gautam Gambhir’s selections amid the T20I series against Afghanistan. The former CSK batter reckons the current head coach gives more weightage to all-rounders than specialist players.

Under Gambhir’s tutelage, India has consistently backed players like Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, and Harshit Rana. While Rana was injured for the Afghanistan series with a fresh injury, Reddy and Sundar are making a comeback after recovering from a hamstring injury.

Badrinath said on his YouTube Channel, “All three come into the all-rounder category. In this, Sundar and Nitish are definite all-rounders. But with Harshit Rana, they are trying very hard to make him an all-rounder. Gautam Gambhir seems hell-bent on creating all-rounders and multidimensional cricketers. Because of that desperation, these three are constantly getting picked even when they are dealing with injury issues.”

Badrinath reckons India hasn’t been able to create the next proper all-rounder after Hardik Pandya.

He added, “But they are not able to create the next proper all-rounder. There is no one after Hardik Pandya who is a proven all-rounder. But they are desperately trying to create more. This desperation is the reason they are getting picked even though they don’t clear the fitness parameters.”

Pandya has been named in India A One-Day squad for the three-match series against Australia A. However, the all-rounder’s final selection is subject to fitness clearance.

The first ODI will be played at Puducherry on October 6.

India A One-Day Squad:

Ruturaj Gaikwad (captain), Priyansh Arya, Sai Sudharsan, Devdutt Padikkal (vice-captain), Rajat Patidar, Kumar Kushagra (wk), Nishant Sindhu, Vipraj Nigam, Arshin Kulkarni, Arshad Khan, Naman Dhir, Hardik Pandya* (subject to fitness), Prabhsimran Singh (WK), Gurjapneet Singh and Yash Thakur