Former Mumbai Indians batsman Tirumalasetti Suman has questioned the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and head coach Gautam Gambhir over his exclusion from the three-match T20 series against Zimbabwe, which is scheduled to begin on Thursday at the Harare Sports Ground in Harare.
The Men in Blue are on this tour with a different support staff, as head coach Gautam Gambhir and his support staff are being rested for the Zimbabwe series. VVS Laxman will replace Gautam Gambhir, who is currently the head of cricket at the BCCI Center of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru and will be taking over the charge along with Sunil Joshi and Hrishikesh Kanitkar, who will be the bowling and batting coach respectively.
Tirumalasetti Suman criticizes Gautam Gambhir for taking rest in Zimbabwe series
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Tirumalasetti Suman criticized Gautam Gambhir and said that India’s coaching staff should not have given rest in this series and should have continued it, given the kind of form the team has been in in recent times, and even during the IPL, Gautam Gambhir and other Indian team coaching staff got rest for almost two months.
“For this series, India have a completely new support staff. It is quite surprising because the same thing should continue for all white-ball series. It is strange. These coaches (Gambhir and Co) were not part of any IPL team and there was a gap of two and a half months between them.”
“After the IPL, he played only ten matches. Why do you need rest? After this, there is a gap again till the Sri Lanka series. So it is a big question mark,” he said in a video on his YouTube channel.
“India’s performance has been worrying” – Tirumalasetty Suman on India’s current T20I form
Speaking about India’s recent T20I form, Suman said that the Men in Blue have been playing against other teams in this tour, but in the tour of Ireland and England, they played with almost full strength teams, in which they lost 2-0 and 4-0 respectively, and thus the morale of the team is also low after such a poor performance.
Citing that Zimbabwe’s form was the opposite as they won the series against Bangladesh and performed amazingly in that white-ball series, and are in good form, and their team is also good to compete against India.
“India’s performance has been worrying. Now they are playing with a second-rate team, but a full-strength team played against Ireland and England. Shreyas is still looking for his first win, the morale is a bit low and the confidence is also low. On the other hand, despite the defeat in the T20 series against Bangladesh, Zimbabwe has done well in the last one and a half months. Their team is also good.”
“Zimbabwe cannot be taken lightly”- Tirumalasetti Suman warns India on Zimbabwe
Suman also warned India not to take Chevron lightly as the Men in Blue have inexperienced players like Ashok Sharma, Prince Yadav and Mayank Yadav. The bowling attack is relatively inexperienced, with Prince playing most of the matches among them.
He said, “Zimbabwe cannot be taken lightly, as we saw what they did in the T20 World Cup. This is also India’s second-string team. We are considering some new faces here. Barring Prince Yadav, all other fast bowlers have an economy of 11 or more. Prince was also dropped recently and he too went for runs. So clearly, this is an inexperienced bowling attack.”