‘Different rules for different players’ – Sunil Gavaskar lashes out at Indian team management

‘Different rules for different players’ – Sunil Gavaskar lashes out at Indian team management
T Natarajan made an impressive debut for team India

Former Indian opening batsman Sunil Gavaskar once again grabbed all the headlines after his recent comments. He took a dig at the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for their biases towards a few team players. The veteran cricketer reckoned that they didn’t pay attention to the needs of relatively smaller names like rookie T Natarajan.

In his column for Sportstar, Gavaskar explained how there are ‘different rules for different players’ within the team. Quoting the example of the Natarajan, who recently became a father but flew to Australia for the limited-overs series. The 29-year old had a brilliant run with Sunrisers Hyderabad during the 2020 edition of Indian Premier League (IPL). 

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“A player who will wonder about the rules, but, of course, can’t make any noise about it as he is a newcomer. It is T Natarajan. The left-arm yorker specialist who made an impressive debut in the T20 and had Hardik Pandya gallantly offering to share the man of the T20 series prize with him had become a father for the first time even as the IPL playoffs were going on,” Gavaskar wrote.

Virat left from Australia after the Adelaide Test: Gavaskar

Virat Kohli Anushka Sharma
Virat Kohli with wife Anushka Sharma

Gavaskar reckoned that the skipper Virat Kohli got ‘paternal leave’ to fly back home to be with his wife. The cricket legend slammed at the team management for their ‘double standards’ while discriminating between their players.

“He had become a father for the first time even as the IPL playoffs were going on. He was asked to stay on for the Test series but not as a part of the team but as a net bowler. Imagine that. A match-winner, albeit in another format, being asked to be a net bowler. He will thus return home only after the series ends in the third week of January and get to see his daughter for the first time then. And there is the captain (Virat Kohli) going back after the first Test for the birth of his first child,” he added.

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