India's batting legend Sunil Gavaskar is not at all happy with the decision to drop Cheteshwar Pujara from India's squad for the two-match Test series in West Indies in July after the selection committee announced the squad on Friday. The former skipper opined that Pujara has been made the scapegoat for India's batting woes despite the failure of the other batting top order of India.
After his inability to score runs in the recently concluded World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia, Pujara has been axed from the Test squad for the away series which will kick off India's next cycle in the WTC. Yashasvi Jaiswal has been touted to take over from Pujara in the no. 3 slot, a decision that has not gone down well with Gavaskar.
"Why has he been dropped? Why has he been made the scapegoat for our batting failures? He has been a loyal servant of Indian cricket. A loyal and quiet servant. A loyal and quiet achiever. But because he does not have millions of followers on platforms who will make a noise in case he gets dropped, you drop him. That is something beyond understanding.
"What are the criteria for dropping him and keeping the others who failed? I do not know because nowadays, there is no media interaction with the selection committee chairman," Gavaskar told Sports Today in an exclusive interview.
He also pointed out that Pujara was not the only batter to underperform among the top four during the WTC final. Team India were reeling at 71/4 in the first innings. Pujara himself scored 14 and 27 runs in the two innings, but he was not the only one who struggled. Ajinkya Rahane was the only top-order Indian batter to score more than 50 runs in the match.
"He has been playing country cricket. So, he has played a lot of red-call cricket and he knows what it is about. Today, people can play till they are 39-40 years old and as long as you are producing runs, I do not think age should be a factor. Apart from (Ajinkya) Rahane, the batting completely failed. Why Pujara has been made the fall guy is something the selectors will have to explain," he added.
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