India head coach Gautam Gambhir on Tuesday hit back at former captain Kris Srikkanth for alleging that pace bowler Harshit Rana has been picked in the ODI squad for the tour of Australia for being his "yes man". Srikkanth had alleged on his YouTube Channel that Rana was in the national side only because of Gambhir. "Look, it's a little shameful. And I will be very honest with you. It is so unfair that you are targetting a 23-year-old kid for the sake of your YouTube channel. Because ultimately, his father is not an ex-chairman or an ex-cricketer or an NRI. Whatever cricket he has played so far, he has played on his own, and he will continue to play on his own. If you target someone individually, that is not fair," said Gambhir, after India beat West Indies in the second Test to sweep series 2-0.
"You can target people's performance and there are selectors and coaches who target people's performance. But if you say such things to a 23-year-old kid, and then social media amplifies it even more, or in social media, you are told in such a way, imagine the mindset. In future, someone can target your kid too. Anyone can target anyone. At least you can realise that he is a 23-year-old kid," he added.
Srikkanth had stated that Rana, whose association with Gambhir goes back to their stint with IPL side Kolkata Knight Riders, made it to the Indian ODI squad for Australia only because of his equation with Gambhir."He is not a 33-year-old kid. You can criticise me, and I can still handle it. But a 23-year-old boy, is a 23-year-old boy. That is something which is not acceptable. I think that is why we need to be careful. What you say, only to run your YouTube channel. I think you've got, every one of us, not only me, you guys, every one of us have a moral responsibility towards Indian cricket. Indian cricket doesn't belong to me. It doesn't belong to people sitting in the dressing room. It belongs to all of you as well. It belongs to every Indian, who genuinely wants Indian cricket to do well. So you can criticise, but only on performance. Don't do it because you want to target an Indian.You want to target someone, you target someone. You target me, that's okay," Gambhir explained.
"But, don't target a young boy. And, it is not only in Harshit's case, in future also, don't target these young boys. So, performance, I think performance, we all know that it is important, results are important," he concluded.Delhi cricketer Rana, who has played two Tests, five ODIs and three T20 Internationals since Gambhir took over last year, recently turned up in an Asia Cup match that India won.
