Kirti Azad has taken a dig at the Indian selectors by saying all the selectors combined haven't played half as many matches as Virat Kohli has played so far over their poor handling of the ODI captaincy issue, which has become one of the most controversial topics in Indian cricket.
Azad, a former Indian cricketer-turned-politician, said that if the decision to sack Kohli as India’s ODI captain had been taken by the national selection committee, the selectors should have gone to BCCI President Sourav Ganguly on the matter, and only after his approval, should the call have been made.
Read Also: Ganguly avoids commenting on Kohli's press-conference, says BCCI will deal with it
For the past few days, the ODI captaincy saga broke out after contrasting statements by Ganguly and Kohli. It has been a hot topic for discussion among the fans and cricket fraternities, and now Azad has come up with a different viewpoint on the matter, saying getting a stamp of approval from the BCCI president is the essential and fruitful practice to appoint or remove a skipper.
Azad told News18: “If this was to be decided by the selectors, they should have gone up to the president. Generally, what happens is that when a team is selected – when I was also a national selector – we would select the team and go to the president of the board.”
The former all-rounder added, “He would see, okay it, sign it, and then it would be announced. But it is always the custom that a team after being selected goes to have a look.”
At the press conference, Kohli said that the national selectors informed him of his sacking as India's ODI captain just hours before the official announcement, and Azad said that it would have certainly hurt the Test skipper while mentioning the latter and the selector’s experience.
He signed off by saying, “So obviously, if you are changing the captain for any format, you write and inform the president. Virat is not upset, but I feel he is hurt for the way he has been informed. So once it went to Sourav, he could have also unofficially spoken about it. You can understand, I don't want to say this. All the selectors are really great guys, but if you put their total number of matches, it won't be even half of what Virat has played.”
