Cheteshwar Pujara has been made scapegoat to hide failures of other batters: Sunil Gavaskar slams selectors

By India Today Sports Desk: Batting great Sunil Gavaskar has slammed the selectors for dropping only Cheteshwar Pujara from India's squad for the two-match Test series in West Indies next month. Gavaskar said that Pujara had been made a scapegoat to hide the failures of other Indian top-order batters in Test cricket.

Pujara's omission from India's squad for the two-Test series against the West Indies in July has been a major talking point. Many believe that Yashasvi Jaiswal could be the one to replace Pujara at number 3, a position that Pujara has made his own over the past decade. The legendary opener expressed disappointment that questions cannot be asked of selectors about their decision to drop Pujara from the Indian Test team, as there was no press conference held to announce the squad.

"Why has he been dropped? Why has he been made the scapegoat for our batting failures. He has been a loyal servant of Indian cricket. A loyal and quiet servant. A loyal and quiet achiever. But because he does not have millions of followers on platforms who will make a noise in case he gets dropped, you drop him. That is something beyond understanding. What is the criteria of dropping him and keeping the others who failed? I do not know because nowadays, there is no media interaction with the selection committee chairman," Gavaskar said in an interview with Sports Today.

Sunil Gavaskar believes that Cheteshwar Pujara should not be dropped from the Indian Test team simply because of his age. Former India captain pointed out that Pujara was not the only Indian batsman who failed to score big in the WTC final against Australia, and that the team's top four was blown away for just 71 runs in the first innings. Pujara himself scored 14 and 27 runs in the two innings, but he was not the only one who struggled. Ajinkya Rahane was the only Indian batsman to score more than 50 runs in the match.

"He has been playing country cricket. So, he has played a lot of red-call cricket and he knows what it is about. Today, people can play till they are 39-40 years old and as long as you are producing runs, I do not think age should be a factor. Apart from (Ajinkya) Rahane, the batting completely failed. Why Pujara has been made the fall guy is something the selectors will have to explain," he added.