MSK Prasad Hits Out At Critics, Takes Credit For Rise Of Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya

Chief selector MSK Prasad has hit out at the critics who are taking relentless shots at the current selection panel. Appointed in 2016, the MSK Prasad-led selection panel has had a very adventurous ride thus far. During their tenure, India achieved some highs like Test series win in Australia, ODI series win in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

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However, the phase has also been marred with several setbacks. One of the biggest issue has been the selectors’ failure to give longer ropes to youngsters in order to sort out the middle-order woes. The fragile middle-order has been India’s achilles heel for quite some time now and is showing absolutely no signs of improvement.

Recently, the selectors faced the heat after not considering Shubman Gill for the tour of West Indies. The highly-rated youngster is in supreme form at the moment but the selectors decided to try out other players, thus inviting criticism from all around. Quite a number of quarters criticised the selectors for not having vision.

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Well, MSK Prasad is having none of it as he has reminded the critics of the current selectors’ achievement and also pointed out that the panel was visionary. Citing the example of Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya, Prasad insisted that the panel never lacked vision.

“If this committee lacked vision, then how did Jasprit Bumrah, who is predominantly considered a white-ball bowler, has been eased into Test cricket and he becomes No.1 Test bowler in ICC rankings? If we lacked vision, how on earth did Hardik Pandya, who again was initially thought of being a T20 player, was prepared for all-round duties across formats?,” he told PTI.

“Well, this is also the same committee that blooded Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal when we had other established spinners (Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja) in the limited overs team. And so much for our “lack of vision”, Rishabh Pant, whom nobody ever thought that could be cut out for longer formats, has been groomed and inducted into Test squad in such a short span of time. We all saw the results in England and Australia — both with bat and behind the stumps,” he added.

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