India batting legend Virender Sehwag doesn’t believe that head coach Ravi Shastri was unaware about Rohit Sharma’s injury issue that resulted in him not being selected for the Australia tour.
Rohit missed four straight IPL matches for Mumbai Indians before making his return on Tuesday, surprisingly on the same day when BCCI president Sourav Ganguly advised him to not rush back to competitive cricket.
In an interview, Shastri had said that since he’s not par of Indian cricket team’s selection committee, it was not his call whether Rohit gets to make the squad for Australia tour.
But Sehwag differs.
“I don’t think that it is possible that Ravi Shastri did not know about Rohit Sharma’s situation,” Sehwag said on Cricbuzz. “Even if he is not a part of the selection committee, the selectors must have spoken to him a day or two days ago regarding what he was thinking, and taken his feedback and inputs.”
“I do not agree with this statement of Ravi Shastri that he is not a part of the selection committee. Even if it is not official, the coach and captain must have spoken unofficially to the selectors regarding who should be in the team for the Australia tour,” he added.
Rohit turning out for his franchise has raised eyebrows with the likes of Dilip Vengsarkar questioning whether BCCI erred in diagnosing his injury correctly or the opener is ready to risk injury to play for MI.
Sehwag has also questioned BCCI’s management of the entire issue.
“I am surprised to see that a player who is ready to play for the franchise has not been selected to play for the country. This is surprising and mismanagement from the BCCI. They should have taken all the information that if he can play for his IPL team then he should be kept in the Indian team,” Sehwag, himself a former India opener, said.
“If he got injured, they could have called in a replacement for him. But he was not kept in India’s squad, this I don’t understand. This is a strange year. Now, what you will do? He played this game against SRH. He will play the playoffs games. He is saying I am fit. Then why didn’t you pick him,” he added.