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‘Celebrating mediocrity’, Venkatesh Prasad launches scathing attack on Team India

‘Celebrating mediocrity’, Venkatesh Prasad launches scathing attack on Team India

Venkatesh Iyer has slammed India Cricket Team and Rahul Dravid for mediocre performances in limited-overs cricket ahead of World Cup 2023.

India may have lost an ODI match trying to go for experimentation but former India pacer Venkatesh Prasad is not happy. He has launched a scathing attack on India Cricket Team after falling to a struggling West Indies in Barbados in IND vs WI 2nd ODI.

Although Venkatesh Prasad has acknowledged India’s performances in Test cricket, he has slammed failures in ODIs and T20Is.

“Test cricket aside, India has been very ordinary in the other two formats for quite sometime now. Lost ODI series against BAN, SA and AUS. Poor in the last two T20 World Cups. Neither are we an exciting team like England nor brutal like how the Aussies used to be,” Venkatesh Prasad said in a tweet.

There was a huge expectation that Rahul Dravid will carry forward the legacy Ravi Shastri set in Test cricket. But India Cricket Team has lost two WTC Finals in a row. In limited-overs cricket, Team India has failed to make any mark despite success of Indian Premier League (IPL) reaching sky-high.

“Despite the money and power, we have become used to celebrating mediocrity and are far from how champion sides are. Every team plays to win and so does India but their approach and attitude is also a factor for underperformance over a period of time,” he added in the following tweet.

One point to ponder for Rahul Dravid & India Cricket Team is the continuation of failed experimentations. KL Rahul got backing after backing despite doing poorly in Test cricket. While he was eventually dropped, it’s time for Suryakumar Yadav now.

Why is Venkatesh Prasad miffed with Team India?

  • Suryakumar Yadav has not scored a half-century in his last 17 ODI outings.
  • But the World No 1 T20 batter continues to find a place no matter his performance.
  • In the IND vs WI 2nd ODI, he scored his highest in the last five innings with 24.
  • Team India succumbed to mediocre West Indies bowling in absence of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.
  • In the 1st ODI, there was no role clarity as SKY batted at No 3, Hardik Pandya at No 4, Ravindra Jadeja at No 5 and even Shardul Thakur batted ahead of Rohit Sharma.
  • In bowling, Axar Patel and Mukesh Kumar only got two overs and three overs, respectively in the 2nd ODI. Hardik bowled 6.4 overs without any success.
  • To make things even worse, Axar Patel came out to bat at No 4, showing lack of planning.
Insidesport

What did Rahul Ddravid say?

While Rahul Dravid defended the moves with just an ODI left before a crucial Asia Cup 2023 and World Cup 2023, the former India captain has not earned any credits from his teammate.

“This series was our last chance to try out some of our players. We have a few players injured, at the NCA. With a month to go for the Asia Cup, we’re running out of time in a lot of ways. We’re hopeful that some of them will be fit for the Asia Cup and the World Cup. We can’t take those chances. We’ve to try out other players and give some chances so that in a worst-case scenario they have some game time behind them,” Rahul Dravid said after the IND vs WI 2nd ODI.

“It gives us some time to make decisions on players. We just felt that, in a series like this, with just two-three matches to go before the Asia Cup, playing Virat and Rohit would not have given us too many answers. With the injuries we have at the NCA and some uncertainty around them, we wanted to give the other boys some chance. So that, if required, they can play,” he added.

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