Gavaskar lashes out at India selectors, call them "lame ducks"

Mumbai, July 29: Sunil Gavasakr lashed out at Indian selectors and called them "lame ducks" for not posing questions to Indian captain Virat Kohli for India's semifinal exit from the ICC World Cup 2019. India were knocked out of the tournament in the semifinals by New Zealand, and Gavaskar said the selectors have sent out the signal to Kohli that he can retain the job as long as he wanted.

"That they selected the team for West Indies without first having a meeting to select the captain brings up the question of whether Virat Kohli is the captain of the team at his or the selection committee's pleasure," wrote Gavaskar in his coloumn in Mid-Day. "To the best of our knowledge his (Kohli's) appointment was till the World Cup. After that, it was incumbent on the selectors to meet even if it was for five minutes for his reappointment."

"Speaking of lame ducks, the Indian selection committee appears to be one. After the reappointment, he (captain) gets invited to the meeting for his views on the selecting the players for the team. By bypassing the procedure, the message that goes out is that while the players like Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik get dropped after below expectations performance, the captain continues despite much below par expectations where the team did not even reach the finals," said Gavaskar.

Gavaskar hoped that the new bunch of selectors would be of some international repute so that they would not be "bullied." The current set of selectors lacked the "stature" according to Gavskar. MSK Prasad, Sarandeep Singh, Gagan Khoda, Jatin Paranjpe and Devang Gandhi did not have any lengthy Indian career. In fact, Khoda and Paranjpe never played Test, appearing in two and four for ODIs.

"This (team to the West Indies) is probably one of the last selections for this committee as a new one will get appointed soon," he wrote. "Hopefully that will have players of stature who will not get bullied and be able to tell the team management that their job is to play with the team chosen by the selectors," Gavaskar wrote.