Legendary wicketkeeper-batter Adam Gilchrist has slammed the Australian team management for handling left-arm spinner Ashton Agar poorly in the ongoing Test tour of India.

According to the media reports in Australia, Agar is all set to fly home after the visitors lost the second Test in Delhi inside three days.

Ashton Agar was one of the four spinners named in the original touring party alongside Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Swepson, and Todd Murphy.  However, he fell behind in the pecking order first to off-spinner Todd Murphy and fellow left-arm spinner Matt Kuhnemann.

Notably, Kuhnemann wasn’t part of the original 18-member squad and was added to the side after leg-spinner Mitchell Swepson flew back home for the birth of his first child.

Amid the recent developments, Gilchrist has come in support of Ashton Agar and called it a “pretty big insult” for the cricketer.

“Ashton Agar… there’s been murmurings that he might be on a flight home because he might feel like he’s surplus to requirements over there and I can understand why, without being in the camp and knowing the finer details of why he wasn’t picked,” Gilchrist told SEN WA Mornings.

“But it’s a pretty big insult that I know from touring and being on a lot of tours, you felt that if you’re picked on the tour in a broader squad – unless it’s a pretty extreme like for like that has to come in – you generally expected the guys that were first reserves to step in.

“So that’s a bit of a body blow for him I would imagine. I haven’t spoken to him… it’ll be interesting to see what he does, whether he’s brought into contention.”

Former Australian spinner Nathan Hauritz also opined that Ashton Agar had been unfairly treated by selectors.

“I thought Ashton really deserved an opportunity, and it will be really tough for him at the moment and it will not matter what a selector … says at the moment,” Hauritz told ABC Sport.

“Having a bloke (Kuhnemann) fly in, and even if he did bowl well in the nets for three or four days, it’s irrelevant to me.

“It’s like, what message are you sending to this kid (Agar)? Pick him in a Test, take him on a tour and then you don’t play him in either of the Tests.