Former India captain and coach Anil Kumble has criticised India’s decision to leave Ambati Rayudu out of their 2019 World Cup squad.
The Indian think-tank faced a conundrum ahead of the 2019 World Cup: they had very few all-rounders. None of their batters bowled, and most of their frontline bowlers were genuine tail-enders.
India’s main fast bowlers, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami, and their trusted wrist-spinners, Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav, fell under this category.
Hardik Pandya was their lone all-rounder, but he was their fifth bowler, and India did not have a sixth bowler. Picking Ravindra Jadeja in England would have meant leaving out one of Chahal and Kuldeep.
All that left them at a potentially precarious position of a bowler breaking down. The only way to address that was to pick a batter who bowled: the selectors backed Vijay Shankar, who fitted that bill, ahead of Ambati Rayudu.
They included Rayudu – who had played ODIs for India two months before the World Cup – among the backups, along with Rishabh Pant, Axar Patel, Navdeep Saini, and Ishant Sharma.
Chair of selectors MSK Prasad explained that they wanted a ‘three-dimensional’ cricketer. Rayudu was not amused.
Just Ordered a new set of 3d glasses to watch the world cup 😉😋..
— ATR (@RayuduAmbati) April 16, 2019
One can see why Rayudu was annoyed. Between the start of 2018 and the start of the 2019 World Cup, he had made 639 runs at 42.60 and a strike rate of 84. Across a 55-match ODI career, he made 1,694 runs at 47.05 and 79.
When Shikhar Dhawan was injured during the World Cup, India called up Pant. When Shankar picked up an injury – after 77 runs and figures of 5.2-0-22-2 across three matches – they added Mayank Agarwal.
India were knocked out of the tournament after losing the semi-final. Rayudu has not played for India since, while Shankar was left to face the burden of the 3D tag.
Rayudu retired from the IPL after his team, Chennai Super Kings, lifted the IPL trophy for a fifth time, beating Gujarat Titans – featuring Shankar – at their den.
Anil Kumble, who had coached India from mid-2016 to mid-2017, spoke on Jio Cinema on Rayudu’s axing: “Rayudu should have played the 2019 World Cup. Oh yes, there’s no doubt about it. It was a huge blunder. You prepared him for that role for so long and his name just disappears from the squad. It was surprising nonetheless.”
