BGT: Harbhajan Singh slams team selection, calls for end of superstar culture
6 Jan 2025 3:32 PM IST
New Delhi: Former India spinner Harbhajan Singh has urged the BCCI to end the "superstar culture" in the team and pick players for future assignments solely on the basis of performance and not on reputation.
Harbhajan's stinging remarks came after India's 1-3 Test series defeat to Australia for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the first time in a decade.
"There is a superstar culture which has developed. We don't need superstars, we need performers. If the team has them (performers), it will move forward. Whoever wants to become a superstar should stay at home and play cricket there," the spin great said on his Youtube channel.
"There is a tour of England coming up. Now everyone has started talking about what will happen in England, who will go, who will not go. For me, it is a simple matter. Only players who are performing should go. You can't keep picking players on their reputation."
"If you do that, then you should take Kapil Dev sir and Anil bhai also. Here, the BCCI and the selectors will have to be firm and act tough. I don't think that the superstar attitude is taking the team forward."
Captain Rohit Sharma and star batter Virat Kohli were woefully out of form during the just-concluded Test series against Australia. The series defeat resulted in the team losing out on qualifying for the World Test Championship final.
Kohli could manage only 190 runs in his nine innings in the series Down Under, repeatedly offering edges to the slip cordon or keeper.
Harbhajan said the struggling players should play some form of cricket and prove themselves if they wish to be picked for the England Test tour.
"It should be based on performance only, whether it is Virat, Rohit or anyone. No player is bigger than the game, even if he thinks in his mind that he is a big superstar. If we have to take Indian cricket forward, we have to ask tough questions."
"I am not saying that you should drop them but if you take them on tour, they (struggling players) should play some form of cricket whether county cricket or something before England tour.
"This will be a challenge for the selectors, but it's time for selectors to wake up and take some action.
"I don't say that any player be dropped, and unnecessarily start chopping and dropping but at least there should be a procedure as to who will get how many chances and for how long, because in India there is a long queue of talents."
He also spoke about Kohli's struggles in the past few years.
"Virat has played 11 Tests in 2024 and scored 440 runs. The average is 23.15, with one hundred and one fifty. Such an average may be unheard of because he is a very big name. This stat is obviously very low. When I saw it, it was a shocking stat for me too.
"If you give a youngster an opportunity, I feel he will also be able to do this much (match the stats of Kohli)."
Harbhajan said India would have lost the series 0-5 or 0-4 if Jasprit Bumrah was not part of the team.
"He was used like you squeezed juice from sugarcane. It was like 'Travis Head has come, give the ball to Bumrah, Marnus has come, give the ball to Bumrah, Steve Smith has come, give the ball to Bumrah'.
"How many overs will Bumrah bowl? He has been reduced to such a condition that he was not available at the end. If he was there, Australia may have won the fifth Test but they would have lost eight wickets, it would have been tough for them."
"You broke his back and the management should have decided on how many overs he should be given."
Harbhajan also criticised the team selection for the fifth Test in Sydney which India lost by six wickets.
"The team selection was not right. Two spinners were played on a spicy pitch, you saw green patches. It is beyond my understanding that despite playing so much cricket and watching so much cricket you do not understand such a small thing... what to do on such pitch."
"The gentleman who has gone there and sitting there together if he is not able to understand this thing then I don't know what he is doing."
"What is the point of having two spinners on this pitch. Your spinners did bowl very little, you are just making batting line-up longer. It is not right, they are just stuck in their stubbornness. This is not a T20 format, this is Test cricket."�
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