Sourav Ganguly Says Not Sending A Replacement For Injured Shubman Gill To England Is "Selectors’ Call"

BCCI President Sourav Ganguly has bluntly put out that sending or not sending a replacement for the injured Shubman Gill for the Test series against England is entirely in the hands of the selectors while refraining from airing any of his own subjective opinions.

Gill has been all but ruled out of the 5-Test series against Joe Root’s side, starting August 4, for stress injury to his shins. It was reported in the past few days that the team management in England had asked the selectors to send Prithvi Shaw and Devdutt Padikkal as replacement openers. However, their request was denied by the Chetan Sharma-led selection panel.

Both Shaw and Padikkal are currently in Sri Lanka for the limited-overs matches. Virat Kohli now has Mayank Agarwal, KL Rahul, and Abhimanyu Easwaran to choose from to partner Rohit Sharma at the top; Hanuma Vihari and Cheteshwar Pujara, both of whom have opened previously in Test cricket, are other left-field options as openers.

On being asked the question about no replacements for Gill being named yet, Sourav Ganguly concisely said: “That’s selectors’ call.”

This year if again the World Cup gets cancelled, then it’s a massive loss for the game: Sourav Ganguly

The former India captain also spoke about the shifting of the T20 World Cup from India to the UAE.

Sourav Ganguly pointed out that the fans had already been denied one T20 World Cup – last year’s event in Australia – due to covid-19; since the BCCI and the ICC don’t want to take any risk about losing this year’s World Cup too they decided to move it to the UAE, where the board had already decided to stage the remainder of the IPL 2021.

“There will be regret but no one has witnessed such a situation in their entire lifetime. These are exceptional circumstances.

“Last year the World Cup got cancelled and this year if again the World Cup gets cancelled because of COVID, then it’s a massive loss for the game. That’s why we have taken it into a safer place,” the 49-year-old BCCI President stated.

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