Ajay Jadeja
Ajay Jadeja (Image Credit: Twitter)

Former India batsman Ajay Jadeja said he has been left “surprised” by BCCI’s appointment of MS Dhoni as a mentor to Team India for the T20 World Cup. The BCCI recently announced their squad for the mega event while also revealing that the former skipper will join the side in the role of a mentor.

Ajay Jadeja has been finding it “impossible to understand” this decision by the board. He highlighted that Virat Kohli had already played under and learned from MS Dhoni, and reckons there wasn’t any need for this choice.

MS Dhoni, Ravi Shastri, Virat Kohli
MS Dhoni, Ravi Shastri, Virat Kohli. (Photo: Twitter)

“It is impossible for me to understand. I am thinking for two days about what could be the thinking. I am not talking of MS Dhoni, the understanding he has or how useful he can be, I am not going towards that. It was like you sent Ravindra ahead of Ajinkya, the person thinks why it has been done,” Ajay Jadeja said on Sony Network.

“I am surprised. There is no fan bigger than me of MS Dhoni. I believe MS Dhoni was the first captain who made the next captain before leaving or they used to always keep changing whenever they wanted.”

What happened overnight that a mentor was required?: Ajay Jadeja

Ajay Jadeja questioned whether the selectors don’t have complete faith in the so-far successful leadership of Kohli and Ravi Shastri that they needed Dhoni to step in so close to the tournament.

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He added:

“When you made and left and that player has taken that team to a different level, there is a coach who has taken the team to World No.1, what happened overnight that a mentor was required? That thinking is surprising me a little.”

Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni, ODIs
Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni (Image Credit: Twitter)

The 50-year-old pointed out that MS Dhoni and Kohli do also have dissimilar tactical styles of captaincy.

“The Indian cricket I am seeing is working in a different way. Dhoni used to run it one way, he used to play the spinners, he never used to play four fast bowlers. What happened for Indian cricket in England was the doing of four pacers. One person thinks one way, the other thinks some other way, probably it is an attempt to merge the two,” the former batsman concluded.

India take on Pakistan for their opening encounter on October 24 in Dubai. They will then meet New Zealand, Afghanistan, and two other teams from the qualifiers in the Super 12 stage.

India 15-man squad: Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Rahul Chahar, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami.

Reserves: Shreyas Iyer, Deepak Chahar and Shardul Thakur

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