Virat Kohli paternity leave: Sunil Gavaskar slams BCCI for having different rules for different players

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New Delhi, December 24: Questioning the bias in the Indian Cricket Team former India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar has claimed the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), as well as the team management, has a different set of rules for different players.

Gavaskar has raised the issue of paternity leave granted to India skipper Virat Kohli while the likes of R Ashwin and T Natarajan do not get the same treatment. The legendary batsman also highlighted the fact that Ashwin was sidelined by the team management not because of his form, but for speaking his heart out.

In his column for Sportstar, the 71-year-old wrote: "For far too long Ashwin has suffered not for his bowling ability of which only the churlish will have doubts, but for his forthrightness and speaking his mind at meetings where most others just nod even if they don't agree."

"Any other country would welcome a bowler who has more than 350 Test wickets and not to forget four-Test match centuries, too. However, if Ashwin doesn't take heaps of wickets in one game he is invariably sidelined for the next one. That does not happen to established batsmen though. Even if they fail in one game they get another chance and another and another but for Ashwin, the rules seem to be different," he added.

Citing the case of T Natarajan, Gavaskar added that the left-arm pacer from Tamil Nadu has been forced to stay back only as a net bowler even though his services were taken only during the limited-overs series Down Under.

"Another player who will wonder about the rules but, of course, can't make any noise about it as he is a newcomer. It is T Natarajan. The left-arm yorker specialist who made an impressive debut in the T20 and had Hardik Pandya gallantly offering to share the man of the T20 series prize with him had become a father for the first time even as the IPL playoffs were going on. He was taken to Australia directly from the UAE and then looking at his brilliant performances, he was asked to stay on for the Test series but not as a part of the team but as a net bowler. Imagine that," wrote Gavaskar.

"A match-winner, albeit in another format, being asked to be a net bowler. He will thus return home only after the series ends in the third week of January and get to see his daughter for the first time then. And there is the captain going back after the first Test for the birth of his first child. That's Indian cricket. Different rules for different people. If you don't believe me ask Ravi Ashwin and T Natarajan," he further wrote.