“I’m not saying that you can’t play…”, Anjum Chopra on Ashwin’s exclusion from WTC final XI

Team India was defeated by Australia in the World Test Championship, earlier this month. Playing at the Oval, the Rohit Sharma-led side faced a 209-run defeat and their hopes of winning an ICC trophy were brutally crushed. Team India’s failure at another major ICC event gave rise to a lot of criticism.

Questions were raised on exclusion of Ashwin –

Many fans and experts raised questions about the side’s Playing XI. The team management went with Ravindra Jadeja as their only spinner in the match, which led to the exclusion of the ace all-rounder R Ashwin. Ex-India women’s skipper Anjum Chopra also questioned the team’s decision of leaving out the veteran spinner.

Anjum told News18 – “Absolutely! I definitely felt that. In fact, my playing XI did have (Ravichandran) Ashwin there. I’m not saying that you can’t play four pacers, it’s nothing of that sort, but I always felt that irrespective of the conditions, had India lost the toss and we were asked to bat, we would have struggled to think, ‘Oh! Now what do we do?’ I’m pretty sure that the team management thought through the decision.”

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Anjum Chopra added –

“As a player, I would have always kept Ashwin in that line-up, just because, I think he is a quality bowler and irrespective of the conditions, he can deliver the goods. And he’s absolutely in isolation, just looking at his skill level and the records the Indian team has had with him in the playing XI.”