Patna: India’s 15-year-old wonderkid Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is yet to get a game in the T20 International series against the West Indies, and his childhood coach Manish Ojha is not amused.
Taking aim at the Indian team management, Ojha accused Gautam Gambhir & Co. of behaving like a “dictatorship”, arguing that a prodigious talent like Sooryavanshi needs opportunities to play rather than being made to wait on the sidelines.
“This current Indian team management, they feel they make players by keeping them on the bench… There are many other legends of cricket; you talk to them, and everyone will say that if we have to prepare the next generation of players, they are put into that situation; they are made to play. Sitting on the bench, no player has ever been made, nor will they be,” Ojha said told Sports Now.
“Either they have made up their mind that this kid will not be given a chance… keep him out and frustrate him… I mean what to say now? When you sit out, then you get a feeling that I have no utility in the team, the kid gets frustrated,” the coach said.
“According to me, Vaibhav is like a storm. Whoever tries to take him on will eventually break, if not today, then tomorrow,” Ojha remarked.
“This kid, at this age, should become mature by playing match by match and there should be refinement and improvement coming in his game. He is sitting outside and serving water. I feel that the management that is here right now, they are doing a kind of dictatorship where whatever comes to mind, they will do,” Ojha alleged.
Sooryavanshi was handed his T20I debut in the second match of the series in England in July. Since then, he has played eight T20Is for India, including in the Asian Games in Aich-Nagoya where the men in blue retained the gold medal.
But in the home series against the West Indies, Sooryavanshi has warmed the benches in the first three matches as the team management has preferred Sanju Samson as Abhishek Sharma’s opening partner.
Samson flopped in the first and third games, but in between played a blinder (82 off 41 balls), albeit in a losing cause.
India lead 2-1 with two matches to play. It remains to be seen if Gambhir and skipper Shreyas Iyer decide to include the batting prodigy in the playing XI.
