Posted by The Board of control for cricket in India (BCCI) again stand unanswered. All on Shubman Gill’s injury and confusion between the test team management and selectors.
ON SHUBMAN GILL’S INJURY : BCCI have not let out any official statement on Shubman Gill’s injury. On 30th June, a report form UK stated that Gill will be missing the 1st and 2nd test due to Shin/calf/hamstring injury, later few reports claimed that he was already carrying a niggle which has now grown and needs medical care and will only miss the opening test match of the series. Days later a report claimed that Gill might get fit only for the last couple of games as it is a shin injury and will take 8 weeks of time to recover and yesterday finally there was a clear picture of Gill missing the entire test series, though BCCI have yet not put out an official statement. So, starting off from missing a test to now missing the entire series Gill’s injury episode should have seen transparency right from the start.
MANAGEMENT AND SELECTORS CONFUSION : Yesterday evening a news came in that stated, On 28th June the test team management from England had requested two openers as replacement for injured Shubman Gill and a mail was dropped to chairman of selectors Chetan Sharma has denied of receiving any such mail and is expected that the request was resent yesterday. Late yesterday there was a confirmation (not bcci official) that the test team management request is officially denied by the selection committee. So, that’s a confirmation that Shaw and Padikkal remain in Sri Lanka for the white-ball series.
OPENING OPTIONS IN ENGLAND : India do have 3 possible openers in England at present in Rohit Sharma, Mayank Agarwal and Abhimanyu Easwaran. KL Rahul too who is an opener in domestic cricket is selected as an middle order batsman in the national XI and if wanted can open on this tour. If not KL Rahul, India stick with Rohit Sharma, Mayank Agarwal and Abhimanyu Easwaran until Prithvi Shaw and Devdutt Padikkal take a flight to England leaving white-ball duties in Sri Lanka if unexpected situation demand.
Abhimanyu Easwaran is in the standby list and the test team management asking for players is not very promising, a batter travelling on tour without a single game being judged is a no-brainer or have the team management now seen some deficiency in him for international cricket standard cause that questions selectors and selection basis. Team management is now unhappy with Abhimanyu Easwaran and so, requested for the backup, also a fact that when the squad was named for the English tour Sri Lanka series was not officially announced so, why weren’t a Prithvi Shaw and Devdutt Padikkal picked ahead of Abhimanyu Easwaran then if they are the hot picks now.
Bureau of sports 