Not Gautam Gambhir Or Shreyas Iyer: Sanjay Manjrekar Pinpoints Who Should Be Sacked After India's 0-4 T20I Loss
Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar made it clear that the BCCI should not take the "easy" route of sacking Gautam Gambhir or Shreyas Iyer.
- Sanjay Manjrekar said Gautam Gambhir or Shreyas Iyer shouldn't be sacked after India's 0-4 T20I loss v England
- "The IPL batting conditions are the easiest I've ever seen in my life," Manjrekar said
- "Go deeper and actually sack those guys who've been advising the BCCI that to make IPL more popular," he added
Team India's disastrous T20I tour of Ireland and England has brought new captain Shreyas Iyer and head coach Gautam Gambhir under the scanner. After unexpectedly losing 0-2 to Ireland and 0-4 to England in back-to-back series, serious questions have been raised over India's T20I squad. However, former India cricketer and reputed pundit Sanjay Manjrekar stated that the "easy" option of removing either the captain or the coach should not be the way forward. Instead, Manjrekar urged the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to inspect the biggest reasons behind the abrupt failure.
Manjrekar diagnosed that Team India wasn't adequately prepared for English conditions, as the squad had been picked based on players' performances in the Indian Premier League (IPL), where conditions are far more batting-friendly.
"The easiest thing to do for India would be to sack Gautam Gambhir, sack the captain, sack some of the players who didn't perform well in Ireland and England. That would be the easy thing to do," Manjrekar stated in a video on his Instagram page.
"The right thing to do would be to identify the main reason for India's setback. And the main reason is that these T20 matches were played in Ireland and England, in overseas conditions," Manjrekar said.
"Our batters and our team were poorly prepared for these conditions. Why? Because the selectors actually picked all these players based on their IPL performances," he pointed out.
Manjrekar argued that the extreme batting-friendly conditions of the IPL need to be done away with.
"The IPL puts on a very heavy makeup on Indian batters, all batters. The IPL batting conditions are the easiest I've ever seen in my life. And that is why it flatters to deceive. And that is why you see so many batters at the top of the order doing the crazy things that they do.
"So you don't really know which player will do well when there is something there for the bowlers. And it's not as easy as batting on a marble sheet as it's in the IPL. And that is where the selectors need to be smart and pick people like Shubham Gill, who will succeed in Ireland, England, everywhere as a T20 batter," Manjrekar said.
The former India batter stated that the people who recommended batting-friendly IPL conditions to the BCCI for popularity's sake should be the ones sacked, and not Gambhir or Iyer.
"Go deeper and actually sack those guys who've been advising the BCCI that (batting-friendly conditions) to make IPL more popular and more commercially viable," he stated.
Gautam Gambhir
India Cricket Team