Srikkanth defends KL Rahul inclusion in test squad, calls Manjrekar’s comment ‘rubbish’

Last updated on February 20th, 2023 at 01:14 pm

BCCI released the team India squad for India tour Australia where Rohit Sharma was excluded and was replaced by KL Rahul, who has been having a fine stint in the ongoing Indian Premier League. But the selection for the 28-year-old cricketer did not go down well with former cricketer and commentator, Sanjay Manjarekar.

The commentator expressed his views on the selection and said that selection of the captain of Kings XI Punjab merely on the basis of IPL for test squad was ‘bad precedent.’

The Punjab captain is the leading run scorer in this year’s IPL and the team currently ranks at number four, below the teams of Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi. But having said that, it is to be noted that Rahul has not been up to the mark in last few of his test matches. While playing England, Rahul could only manage an average of 29.9 and that too after he had scored 149 in the Oval Test.

In his tweet, Manjrekar said, “You set a bad precedent when you recall a player for Tests on IPL performance. Especially if the player has been an abject failure in his last few Tests. Whether that player succeeds or fails is irrelevant, such selections massively demotivate Ranji players.”

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Another Indian cricketer and chairman of selectors Kris Srikkanth defends the decision and calls the comment ‘rubbish.’ Through his youtube channel Cheeky Cheeka, he defends the decision saying, “Leave Sanjay Manjrekar alone, he doesn’t have any other job. Questioning KL Rahul’s selection in Tests? He has played well in Tests. I won’t agree at all. Just because Sanjay wants to question something, I don’t think I’ll agree. You shouldn’t question something just to create a controversy. KL Rahul has done brilliantly in all formats. Go through his Test record. What Sanjay Manjrekar is talking about is rubbish. I’ll not agree.”

He continued talking about Manjrekar being only restricted to Bombay and took it further enough to include a well-known cricket expert and commentator Harsha Bhogle. He brings Bhogle in between all of this and says that he does not know anything other than Bombay. He adds that these people are not neutral in their approach.