Sachin Tendulkar questions Team India decision to leave out Ashwin

“Congratulations to Team Australia on winning the #WTCFinal. @stevesmith49 and @travishead34 set a solid foundation on Day one itself to tilt the game in their favour. India had to bat big in the first innings to stay in the game, but they couldn’t. There were some good moments for Team India, but I fail to understand the exclusion of @ashwinravi99 in the playing XI, who is currently the number one Test bowler in the world,” Sachin Tendulkar said in a tweet.

Sachin Tendulkar emphasized the role of skillful spinners and how they use many variables to perform well in high-stakes matches.

“Like I had mentioned before the match, skillful spinners don’t always rely on turning tracks, they use drift in the air and bounce off the surface to disguise their variations. Not to forget, Australia had 5 left-handers out of their top 8 batters,” Sachin Tendulkar added.

Interestingly, it is not just Sachin Tendulkar who questioned the decision of leaving out Ravichandran Ashwin as skipper Rohit Sharma has faced a lot of flak from cricket veterans and Team India fans for the decision. 

“India missed a trick by not playing Ravi Ashwin. He’s the No. 1 Ranked bowler. You don’t look at the pitch for players like him. You are playing a World Test Championships final, and you don’t pick the number one bowler in Test cricket. This decision from Team India is beyond my understanding. I would have picked him in place of Umesh Yadav, who was out of action and looks out of rhythm,” Star Sports quoted Sunil Gavaskar as saying.

“The reason why I was surprised that Ashwin was left out is because of the number of left-handers Australia has. There’s no doubt in my mind that Ashwin would have bowled a lot better than Jadeja later on in the Test. The big decision that they had to make was between Thakur and Umesh. I was leaning towards Thakur because he would be my workhorse to give a bit of a break to the strike bowlers Shami and Siraj. You can go to Jadeja for a couple of overs just to tie the game down a bit,” former Australian skipper Ricky Pointing said.

Updated: 11 Jun 2023, 08:28 PM IST