‘Needs A Break’: Sunil Gavaskar’s Blunt Take On Mohammed Siraj

Cricketer turned commentator Sunil Gavaskar urged the Indian team management to drop Mohammed Siraj after his below-average bowling in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy. As of now, Siraj has taken 14 wickets in the first three Tests of the series but his weakness was evident with the new ball as he failed to make an impact. The right-arm pace bowler has given away 122 runs at a rate of 5.30 in 23 overs. 

"I think Siraj, perhaps, needs a little bit of a break. In the sense, I am not saying a break, he needs to be told that he is left out of the team for non-performance. There has to be a situation where you can’t beat around the bush. You need to be brutally upfront and say ‘look, your performance has not been up to scratch and therefore you are being dropped’. When you start talking about ‘rest’, players get wrong ideas. They feel they don’t need to up their game," Sunil Gavaskar told Star Sports.

"But I think Siraj needs te be told ‘look, you are not bowling as well as we expected you to on pitches that have been helpful’. That is something that needs to be told.

"If you want to make two changes. Prasidh Krishna and Harshit Rana to support Jasprit Bumrah. By all means, do that," he added.

Talking about the Boxing Day Test, the Indian team conceded a total of 474 to Australia in Melbourne. Bumrah was the only one who managed to make some impact as he scalped 4 wickets for 99 in 28.4 overs.

Australia Squad: Pat Cummins (C), Alex Carey (WK), Usman Khawaja, Nathan McSweeney, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood, Josh Inglis, Scott Boland.

India Squad: Rohit Sharma (C), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Devdutt Padikkal, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant(w), Dhruv Jurel, Nitish Reddy, Ravichandran Ashwin, Akash Deep, Jasprit Bumrah(vc), Mohammed Siraj, Sarfaraz Khan, Prasidh Krishna, Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana, Washington Sundar, Abhimanyu Easwaran.