New Delhi [India], October 14 : The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Vice-President Rajeev Shukla was in sync with head coach Gautam Gambhir about the backlash that young seamer Harshit Rana has been exposed to over his inclusion in the ODI series in Australia.
Harshit is believed by many to be a favourite of Gambhir, and the reason behind this notion stems from the 23-year-old speedster's involvement across all formats. After chief selector Ajit Agarkar announced the contingent for India's white-ball tour of Australia last week, fans and former cricketers questioned Harshit's place in the 15-member squad for the series, scheduled to commence on Sunday.
Former captain and selector Krishnamachari Srikkanth shared his thoughts on the 23-year-old's inclusion in the format, classifying Harshit as "one permanent member in the team". Certain sections of fans questioned Harshit's inclusion over Mohammad Shami, who was the joint-highest wicket-taker for India during the nation's unbeaten run to the Champions Trophy earlier this year.
In the post-match press conference, Gambhir launched a scathing tirade over Harshit's critics, and Shukla too believes that criticism should be done with responsibility, which doesn't bring a player's morale down.
"Gautam Gambhir is right. If someone has any complaints about the players, then it should be done responsibly. This will bring the players' morale down. It is the job of the team to select players. So, before you say anything about the players, you should think about how much responsibility you should take," Shukla said while speaking exclusively to ANI.
After India swept the series against the West Indies on Tuesday, Gambhir didn't mince his words while addressing the criticism around Harshit. He put a tag of "shameful" on those who have targeted the 23-year-old while subtly taking a dig at Srikkanth for his statement, urging them to refrain from commenting to get views on their YouTube channel.
"It's a little shameful that you are targeting a 23-year-old personally. Harshit's father is not a former chairman. It is not fair that you target an individual. You can target people's performance. And there are selectors and coaches who will 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 you are told so many things on social media, imagine the mindset," Gambhir told reporters in the post-match press conference.
"What you say is just to run your YouTube channel. I think you've got, every one of us, not only me, you guys, everyone of us has moral responsibility towards Indian cricket. Indian cricket doesn't belong to me. It doesn't belong to the people sitting in that 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 do it on performance. Don't do it because you want to target an individual," he added.
India's ODI squad: Shubman Gill (Captain), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer (VC), Axar Patel, KL Rahul (WK), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Yashasvi Jaiswal.
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