Sunil Gavaskar Slams Team India's Selection Policy, Says Hair Style & Tattoos More Important Than Form

Team India might have been winning every match but former  captain Sunil Gavaskar has come down hard at the team’s selection policies in the ongoing series against Sri Lanka. Virat Kohli & Co. have been performing brilliantly on the tour and have also been experimenting with the team combination. However, Gavaskar seems to have been miffed by the team-management’s decision to not try out Ajinkya Rahane yet in the ODI series.

Rahane was not given a single game in the Champions Trophy before being asked to open the innings in the five-match series against West Indies. And the Mumbai star proved his worth by scooping the Man of the Series award after finishing the series as its highest run-scorer, having scored 336 runs at an average of over 67 with the help of three half-centuries and one century.

Taking a dig at the players’ who have flaunting tattoos and quirky hairstyles, Gavaskar,in his column for The Times of India, wrote: “The way the selections have gone for this series, it looks like all the nice guys are being left out and they are missing out on fattening their individual career aggregates with bat or ball. Maybe they should start getting a different hair style and some body art done too to get picked in the team.”

India have tried out Kedar Jadhav, KL Rahul and Manish Pandey in the middle-order for the first four games but Rahane is yet to play a single game. Both Jadhav and Rahul have failed to make any mark but surprisingly the team has not tried out the in-form Rahane yet.

“India had made changes on expected lines with the unassuming trio of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Kedar Jadhav and Yuzvendra Chahal being left out of the side. Rahul got yet another chance while the top scorer of the just-concluded one-day series in the West Indies – Ajinkya Rahane – sat out once again,” he added.

Gavaskar also sounded unimpressed with the team management’s decision to promote Hardik Pandya after Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma’s 200-plus partnership was broken in the fourth game.

“After the magnificent partnership between Rohit Sharma and skipper Kohli had been broken, it was expected that Rahul would come in to bat. He would have had time to settle down and get his eye in. Instead it was Hardik Pandya who was sent in earlier. It didn’t make much of a difference as Sharma got out next over so Rahul came in, but never looked settled and he once again failed to pick Dananjaya’s wrong one. It is understandable to keep the faith in a player but not at the expense of an in-form batsman who has done nothing wrong to be sitting out,” the legendary batsman wrote.