'Give them complete break': Sunil Gavaskar slams BCCI on India's selection for West Indies Tests

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Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar has expressed his concerns about India's Test team selection for the upcoming West Indies series. He suggests that the must-in players for ODI World Cup should only focus on white-ball cricket and get a break from the longest format of the game.

BCCI announced the Indian Test squad for the two-match series in the Caribbean and made some changes from the WTC Final 2023 squad. Cheteshwar Pujara missed out whereas new names like Ruturaj Gaikwad, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Mukesh Kumar have made it to the Test team.

Mohammed Shami was rested whereas Jaydev Unadkat kept his spot. Navdeep Saini also received a call for the red ball format. But along with them, India kept core players like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, Shubman Gill, and Mohammed Siraj in the team as well.

But Sunil Gavaskar feels India missed out a 'wonderful opportunity' to integrate more young players for the Test matches. He believes players who are certain for ODI World Cup should focus on playing limited overs format from now on till the tournament which starts in October.

"The World Test Championship is gone. We missed out over there. Now the next big thing really is the (ODI) World Cup in October and therefore I would have wanted for the big boys to be given a complete break from Test cricket. Give them a complete break who are certain to play World Cup. They have been playing non-stop cricket for 3-4 months. They barely had a break," Gavaskar said on Sports Today.

"Had they given break to every senior player and played a few more younger players, that would have done Indian cricket a world of good. But that sadly hasn't happened. I think a wonderful opportunity was missed," he added.

The two-match Test series starts on July 12 in Dominica, which also commences the WTC 2023-25 cycle for team India. The Indian team have made it to the Final of the first two WTC cycles, but ended up losing both the finals.