Wasim Jaffer slammed the national team selectors and expressed his thoughts on India’s Test squad for the West Indies tour on June 23. India made some big changes to their squad after an embarrassing 209-run defeat against Australia in the ICC World Test Championship final 2023 earlier this month.
Veteran batter Cheteshwar Pujara was dropped after a string of poor performances in red-ball cricket. Experienced bowlers Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami also failed to make the team with the latter reportedly being rested. Pujara’s exclusion opened the doors for in-form Yashasvi Jaiswal and Ruturaj Gaikwad for the first team.
But Jaffer highlighted that the Indian team is overcrowded with four openers (Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Gaikwad, and Jaiswal) for only two Test matches and asked BCCI to explain why middle order batter Sarfaraz Khan is not included in the team. Without Pujara, the Indian team look thin with middle-order options with no clarity on who will play at no.3 on the West Indies tour.
“What’s the need for four openers? (Rohit, Shubman Gill, Gaikwad and Jaiswal) Instead, they could have picked Sarfaraz as an extra middle-order bat to honour his consistent domestic performances,” Jaffer wrote in a Twitter post.
Jaffer also joined critics to point out whether the team selection for red-ball cricket is happening solely based on IPL performance. He also said that the likes of Abhimanyu Easwaran and Priyank Panchal remain out of the Test team because they are not playing IPL and questioned Ruturaj Gaikwad’s selection ahead of the duo.
Easwaran and Panchal have been doing the hard yards in Ranji and India A, knocking on Test doors for a long time. Just because they don’t play IPL, is it a case of out of sight out of mind? How did Ruturaj jump the queue? Surprised to see Shami rested and that too after a month-long break. I feel he’s the type of bowler that the more he bowls the better/fitter and in form he gets,” Jaffer added.
