Former Pakistan cricketer Basit Ali has highlighted BCCI’s (Board of Control for Cricket in India) casual approach towards senior players Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.
Notably, the BCCI had made a strict mandate earlier this year for players to play domestic cricket to be eligible for team India selection.
However, senior pros and have been given free hand to decide whether they want to play domestic cricket or not. The casual approach by the board has resulted in the duo losing their form in Test cricket which led to India’s first ever three-match whitewash in a home Test series.
Recently, Basit criticized the senior batters on their form and mentioned how the youngsters have outperformed them.
“It was the mandate that you must make yourself available for domestic cricket to be eligible for India selection. Everyone played domestic, all of them performed in patches – Shubman Gill, Pant, Yashasvi Jaiswal…but dono (Rohit and Virat) ko free hand diya hua that (both have been given free hand), that ‘you can exclude yourself’,” said Ali on his Youtube Channel.
Further speaking ahead, he advised the star duo to play domestic cricket before the all-important five-match Test series vs Australia.
They need to play domestic (cricket) before flying to Australia: Ali
“Virat Kohli, out of touch, not in form at all. He needs to play domestic (cricket) before flying to Australia; Rohit also. Test-match pratice can’t be seen (in their batting),” he added.
In the ongoing year ,with just one half century to his name. On the other hand, Rohit has scored 588 runs from 11 Tests (21 innings) at an average of 29.40 with two hundreds and as many fifties.
Following their poor show in the home season, questions have been raised on their place in the team. Hence, the duo desperately need to turn things around in the upcoming tour to Australia with the time ticking on their respective Test careers.
