Former Indian Test opener Aakash Chopra said he understands the frustration that Gautam Gambhir and Shubman Gill must have had in the last couple of years, as they haven’t been able to pick their full-strength squad because of injury woes.
Star players like Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya haven’t been able to play consistently because of their injury troubles. While Bumrah recently returned to action in the T20I series against Afghanistan, Pandya’s selection is subject to fitness clearance for the One Day series against Australia A.
Furthermore, players like Harshit Rana, Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, and Varun Chakravarthy have been troubled by their respective injuries.
“It’s not fair on a young captain as well if he doesn’t get the best team playing consistently and regularly and not being on par consistently, if I have to be dead honest. Yes, I can, as a coach, I can take all the criticism, but for me, I think it is important for Shubman to get the best playing at 11 as many times as he can in red ball and in white ball format to few more formats as well,” Gambhir said after the 3-0 series win over Afghanistan.
Chopra concurred with Gambhir, stating it hasn’t been easy for the management to play at full strength.
“He’s (Gambhir) not wrong, the story has now become such that you cannot get the entire team available. Sometimes someone gets injured, sometimes someone is unavailable, and sometimes it is workload management. I don’t think he is hinting at anyone or anything. To get a fully prepared and available team for all formats is becoming impossible,” Aakash Chopra said on his YouTube channel.
The renowned commentator added that Indian skipper Shubman Gill sometimes gets hard done by, as preparation is vital for success ahead of foreign tours.
“You don’t get the full opportunity to prepare. It has also been discussed that if you are going to play in SENA countries, do you have enough time to prepare? That preparation is very important. You should prepare well and then try to play with your best full-strength side. So Shubman Gill sometimes feels hard done by. He must be feeling, ‘I am playing, but I don’t have my main bowlers’. If you look at the team for the West Indies ODIs, it is not a full-strength team,” Aakash Chopra said.
India’s next tour is of New Zealand, where they would play five T20Is, as many ODIs and two Test matches.
