Questions Raised After Shreyas Iyer’s Revelation
In the first ODI against England, Yashasvi Jaiswal opened the innings with Rohit Sharma. Shreyas Iyer revealed after the match that he was not initially part of the playing eleven but was included at the last moment due to Kohli’s knee injury. This raises two questions: firstly, dropping the in-form Shreyas Iyer from number 4, and secondly, dropping Gill from the opening position. This excessive flexibility is causing insecurity.
Criticism of KL Rahul’s Position at Number Six
Similarly, the KL Rahul-Axar Patel experiment has also faced strong criticism. KL Rahul was sent in at number six in both matches, with lower-order batsman Axar Patel batting before him. Zaheer Khan said that flexibility is fine as long as it follows guidelines. He indicated that too many changes can foster insecurity among players.
‘You are creating insecurity…’
Zaheer Khan said on Cricbuzz that you have said that you should have flexibility. The first and second numbers will be there, but the rest of the players will also be flexible. There are also some rules in that flexibility. There are some protocols that you have to follow. Some communication is needed, which will streamline things. Otherwise, you are creating insecurity, which will come back and harm you at some level. You don’t want that to happen. So you have to be prepared to deal with that situation.
‘The entire system needs to be streamlined’
Zaheer further stated that if you compare the approaches of Rahul Dravid and Gautam Gambhir, the situation has become dynamic. You can call it good, bad, or ugly, or how we adapt. Every individual is part of this system, whether it’s senior management, the think tank, the players, or the selectors. They need to assess and streamline the entire system.