The battle of words between former India cricketers Aakash Chopra and Venkatesh Prasad over KL Rahul’s poor form has turned into a game of one-upmanship as after Prasad had shared some stats to criticize Rahul, Chopra came out with some stats of his own.
Though KL Rahul has been retained in the Indian squad for the last two Tests against Australia, he has lost the vice-captaincy of the side. Venkatesh Prasad has been on a mission of sorts as he has been talking about KL Rahul’s form on Twitter.
He highlighted the names of Shubman Gill, Shikhar Dhawan, Mayank Agarwal, and Ajinkya Rahane and shared their stats to show how they were better than KL Rahul.
However, Aakash Chopra, on his YouTube channel, has picked apart those numbers with a few stats of his own.
"He (Prasad) didn't even write about Shubman's home numbers. Because you are showing averages, he has played 11 innings at home in which his average is 26.3. I am saying that you shouldn't judge Shubman Gill with averages. He is a damn good player. He is a better player than that but use the same yardstick for the others.
He has shown 14 overseas innings in which he has an average of 37, in which he has conveniently not spoken about SENA countries. If we see only SENA, his numbers will also not be that good. His away numbers are looking good because of Bangladesh," Chopra said in a video.
Chopra asserted that Prasad has cherry-picked stats he wanted to highlight while ignoring a few other stats which don't paint as pleasant a picture as he wanted to.
"He has spoken about Shikhar Dhawan's best overseas average - that he has an average of 39. He conveniently missed the SENA countries. If we talk about SENA countries, Shikhar Dhawan's average is 26. He scored a century in New Zealand but other than that, he doesn't have a century in any SENA country.
He asked us not to see Mayank Agarwal's overseas average, which is actually 25. Mayank Agarwal is very close to my heart. If we leave aside Mayank's form over the last three months, he hasn't scored runs in the last two years, not even in first-class cricket," Chopra added, while nitpicking Prasad’s criticism of Rahul.
"When you see those numbers, you will say that Mayank is probably not in the opening slot's race at the moment. No one is talking about him. Getting Mayank's name in this debate didn't make sense," he added.
Furthermore, Chopra urged Prasad to tone it down a bit and not peddle any agendas on social media.
"I am not saying KL Rahul will become like Rohit Sharma but I humbly request you to stay calm. If there are any agendas, let's not peddle them. Let's talk about the numbers that are actually there and not those that suit your thoughts," he stressed.
When a Twitter user lauded Chopra for providing numbers to give a context to the whole thing, the cricketer responded: “We must always try to do the right thing. Mobilising the internet mob is the easiest thing to do. Standing against the tide for the right reasons is what sports teaches us. Also, it’s not Me vs Venky Bhai. I have immense respect for him but I feel it’s my duty to bring context”
