NEW DELHI: Indian captain Rohit Sharma‘s clarification that Shubman Gill was not dropped for the Boxing Day Test against Australia did not sit well with legendary Sunil Gavaskar, who asserted that the decision could only be described as a drop.
The decision to drop Gill and accommodate all-rounder Washington Sundar, aimed at strengthening the lower middle-order batting depth, drew criticism. However, Rohit clarified that the choice was not made solely by him.
“Look, I had a chat with him. There’s no way when you’re leaving someone out, for whatever reason it is, you will have a chat. And the chat with him was clear that he was not dropped. We just wanted to have that extra bit of cushion in the bowling,” Rohit said.
“Hence, we opted for an all-rounder, which shouldn’t weaken our batting line-up. Compromising a batter for a bowler was not something that I wanted to do.
Gavaskar did mince his words when he was asked for his opinion during a discussion on Star Sports on Rohit’s statement during the post-match press conference
“How much bowling did you give to Washington Sundar? What cushion are you talking about? The requirement of the team is perfectly fine. You need to take decisions based on that, but you left him (Gill) out of the team, you can only call it dropped in whichever language you might speak,” Gavaskar said.
“You can say you omitted or dropped him, both are the same. Omit looks different, drop looks different, and left out looks different. I am talking about English but in the end, that guy was sitting in the dugout and was not on the ground,” he added.
Sundar bowled just 19 overs in the match, taking one wicket across two innings. With the bat, he contributed a responsible 50-run knock in India’s first innings and remained unbeaten on five in the second.
Chasing a target of 340 on the final day of the fourth Test, the Indian batters struggled once again, with only Yashasvi Jaiswal (84) standing out. The team fell short by 184 runs, resulting in a defeat and trailing 1-2 in the five-match series.
