Ex-BCCI Selector Slams Rohit Sharma's Captaincy, Says Team India Pick Wrong XI For WTC 2023 Final

With India losing World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia at The Oval in London, former India team selector Sarandeep Singh said there "was some slack in captaincy" and that Ravichandran Ashwin should have been part of the playing XI. "We can say that there was some slack in captaincy. We have the habit of Virat Kohli's aggression. When the team is down, the captain boosts their morale but Rohit Sharma is completely different," Sarandeep Singh told to ANI.

India lost the ICC World Test Championship title for the second time after reaching the finals. Australia defeated India by 209 runs at The Oval on June 11 and made history by becoming the first-ever team to clinch all major ICC trophies. The former India player also said that the choice of playing XI was wrong.

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"It was not Rohit Sharma's mistake...we lost the WTC final, and all are upset. Firstly, our playing XI was wrong.....Ravichandran Ashwin is such a great bowler and he can take wickets. They (Australia) had five left-handers and Travis Head, who scored runs, was also a left-hander. So if Ashwin was there then possibly this was not have been the story," he added.

He also blamed the senior players for not stepping up in a big game. "The problem lies in senior players, when big matches come, like the World Cup semi-final 2019 or Asia Cup, our senior players do not click together," Sarandeep told to ANI. "We should give good batting wickets in the home series so that our batter can bat longer. It has been a long time since our batters have batted long in Test cricket," he added.

Singh differed with BCCI president Sourav Ganguly's remarks in which he had said that "winning the IPL is more difficult than winning a World Cup". "Ganguly is speaking with his experience...We have not been able to win any ICC trophy for many years. In IPL, you have lots of players from other countries and many matches but in ICC finals, you have only one chance," Singh said.

Singh also said that Umran Malik should have been included in the squad as he has over 150 mph speed. "Why we did not train our bench strength, we could have taken Arsdeep Singh, we did not prepare Avesh Khan. We have Umran Malik, who bowls at a speed more than 150, he should have been there, we needed his pace," Singh said.