Cricket’s all-time leading wicket-taker across formats, Muttiah Muralitharan (1347), believes that India should have picked off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin ahead of left-armer Axar Patel for the ICC Cricket World Cup starting for next month in India.
Earlier this week, the BCCI had announced the 15-member Indian squad for quadrennial event and while there were no major surprises, one of the talking points from the squad was the addition of three left-arm spinners and the absence of an off-spinner.
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While Ravindra Jadeja automatically picks himself in the squad, Axar, a left-arm orthodox finger spinner with lower-order batting prowess similar to Jadeja, piped the likes of specialist off-spinner R Ashwin and another off-spinning allrounder in Washington Sundar.
In an exclusive interview with News18, Muttiah Muralidharan spoke about how Ashwin’s inclusion would have lent variation to India’s bowling attack heading into the home World Cup
“He is one of the best bowlers in the world and when it comes to variations, I would have gone to him,” opined Muralitharan, adding, “but a player’s current form also comes into the picture and the people who have made the selection thought that Axar is done really well both by bat and ball and it would be unfair not to give him a chance.”
The third spinner in the squad is the left-arm unorthodox Kuldeep Yadav, while the other wrist spinner Yuzvendra Chahal missed the cut and Muralitharan felt lack of game time for the Haryana bowler must have been a factor for his non-selection.
“Chahal is a good bowler but he hasn’t played a lot of ODI’s in the recent time nor has he played in domestic cricket also so how do you expect him to be selected. If you are dropped from the ODI team, a player usually goes back to domestic cricket but that hasn’t been the case with Chahal. I am assuming that is the reason,” said the 51-year-old on the sidelines of the official trailer launch of his biopic titled ‘800’ in Mumbai.
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The Sri Lankan great also went ahead and urged the Indian fans to back the decisions taken by the Indian team management.
“Ajit Agarkar (chief selector) is an experienced guy. Rahul Dravid (coach) is a genius and the captain of the team Rohit Sharma is a world-class player; so they have put their thoughts and made the selection. I feel rather than questioning their decision, it is better that the country comes together and backs these players to go and win the World Cup.”
When it comes to selecting certain players, Muralitharan felt that there are lot of ifs and buts, “We all have opinions and if we take into consideration everyone’s opinions, then no country in the world would be able to select a team. The job is given to a few individuals and they would take into consideration what the majority of them decided on and in the best interest of the team,” he added.
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