Former India captain and selector, Kris Srikkanth, lost his cool and lashed out at T20I skipper Shreyas Iyer for the unjust treatment of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi in the series against Ireland and England. Srikkanth wasn’t pleased with what Shreyas had to say at the toss for the final match against England, where the 15-year-old was dropped. The young left-hander got just three games in the UK tour; however, Sooryavanshi failed to make the most of his chances.
Sooryavanshi failed to replicate his IPL form, and he didn’t even surpass the 20-run mark even once in the series. However, Srikkanth wanted the 15-year-old to get more chances in the playing XI.
Srikkanth didn’t mince his words as he slammed Shreyas for the way he spoke about Sooryavanshi at the toss for the fifth T20I in Southampton.
“I was so upset with the interview after the toss. This is not the way to talk. How you treat your players and how you form a young team are important. If this is the way forward, the way forward is to change everybody (the leadership group). He said we want to take the best way forward. If you are willing to drop players based on their performance, the same yardstick should apply to Gautam Gambhir; the same yardstick should apply to the captain as well. You are saying the players are not performing. What has been your performance?” Srikkanth said on his YouTube channel.
“What wrong did Vaibhav Sooryavanshi do? Is this how you groom young players?” he asked further.
What did Shreyas say?
When the broadcaster asked Shreyas about the decision to drop Sooryavanshi, Iyer said it was about doing what was best for the team. “I feel this is the time we need to try what’s best going forward for us as a team. So based on that, we decided this,” Shreyas said.
Srikkanth didn’t buy this logic and used the examples of Sanju Samson and Sooryavanshi to make his point. Samson was dropped after three poor games and the youngster got the same number of games before Samson was included in the playing XI for the fifth game.
“Shreyas Iyer said at the toss, ‘We want to get back to the best way possible’. Is this your best way forward? What is this interview? If you thought Sanju Samson was the best fit, then you should have continued with him. Why bring in Vaibhav and then drop him? Why spoil his future? You are all ruining his confidence. When Sachin Tendulkar made his debut at 16, i went up and told him ‘you won’t be dropped in this tour. You play fearlessly,” said Srikkanth.
“Should Gambhir and Shreyas not give Sooryavanshi that kind of confidence? It’s not fair. I am very upset with the way they are treating Vaibhav Sooryavanshi,” he added.
