Indian cricket legend, Sunil Gavaskar has raised his voice over the ill-treatment of Ashwin and Natarajan by the Indian cricket team management. He said there are “different rules for different players”.
Ashwin despite being a veteran cricketer is treated differently, while Natarajan has been made to stay in England as a net bowler without attending the birth of his first child despite Indian captain Virat Kohli getting paternity leave after the first Test.
Gavaskar wrote in his column for Sportstar: “For far too long Ashwin has suffered not for his bowling ability of which only the churlish will have doubts, but for his forthrightness and speaking his mind at meetings where most others just nod even if they don’t agree,”
“Any other country would welcome a bowler who has more than 350 Test wickets and not to forget four Test match centuries, too. However, if Ashwin doesn’t take heaps of wickets in one game he is invariably sidelined for the next one. That does not happen to established batsmen though. Even if they fail in one game they get another chance and another and another but for Ashwin the rules seem to be different,” he added.
Gavaskar was also upset with Natarajan being asked to stay back in England just as a net bowler.
He wrote: “Another player who will wonder about the rules but, of course, can’t make any noise about it as he is a newcomer. It is T Natarajan. The left-arm yorker specialist who made an impressive debut in the T20 and had Hardik Pandya gallantly offering to share the man of the T20 series prize with him had become a father for the first time even as the IPL playoffs were going on. He was taken to Australia directly from the UAE and then looking at his brilliant performances, he was asked to stay on for the Test series but not as a part of the team but as a net bowler. Imagine that,”
“A match winner, albeit in another format, being asked to be a net bowler. He will thus return home only after the series ends in the third week of January and get to see his daughter for the first time then. And there is the captain going back after the first Test for the birth of his first child. That’s Indian cricket. Different rules for different people. If you don’t believe me ask Ravi Ashwin and T Natarajan,” he further added.
Gavaskar was right in pointing about the “different rules for different players”. There’s should be a common rule for everybody and everyone should be treated equally.
