Cricket Controversies: 5 selection controversies featuring team India

Cricket might be known as a gentleman's game but often it turns out to be the opposite which involves cricketers or coaches or others from the cricket fraternity. Cricket controversies can arise from issues like match-fixing to ball-tampering to the selection of players to what not. There have been many such instances that became huge cricket controversies in cricket history.

Recently, Usman Khawaja, the Australian cricketer revealed that he was often criticized and faced racism because of his skin color. After the recent controversy related to Ollie Robinson went viral on Twitter, Usman Khawaja revealed that he has faced racism and was told that he will not be selected for the team because of his skin color. Keeping the recent cricket controversies in mind, let's dig into the 5 selection cricket controversies featuring team India.

1. Controversy related to the selection of Hanuma Vihari 

After a disappointing loss in the World Cup semi-final against New Zealand, India went on its first tour in West Indies. The controversy that arose at the moment was the selection of Hanuma Vihari instead of Rohit Sharma. We all are familiar with the dominance of Rohit Sharma as an opener and that is why his exclusion from the squad was shocking and rose many eyebrows. At that point in time, the rumor of a split between Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli was a matter of discussion. Though Vihari took the best advantage of the chance given to him and scored his first century in Test, many thought that the exclusion of such an experienced batsman like Rohit Sharma was a deliberate decision by the captain himself. Also, there were many talks about Virat Kohli opening with KL Rahul in the series.

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2. Controversy related to the selection of Sourav Ganguly

Many people think that Sambaran Banerjee's greatest achievement was the selection of Sourav Ganguly the Indian squad for the tour of England in 1996. While everyone starting from the captain Mohammad Azharuddin to the coach during that time Sandeep Patel was against this decision, Banerjee fought against everyone for his inclusion in the Indian team. His past performance in the ODI was not up to the mark. Everyone criticized the decision and blamed that he got the chance from the East zone quota. But at the end of the day, all is well that ends well. Ganguly proved his worth impressively and scored 131 runs in 301 balls including 20 fours. Also, he became the 10th Indian player who scored a century on the test debut.

3. Controversy related to the selection of Karn Sharma

The former captain of the Indian cricket team Mahendra Singh Dhoni injured his right thumb and that is why he was not able to lead the team in the first test of the 2014-15 tour of Australia. Virat Kohli became the skipper of the team and he took an astonishing decision. He selected Karn Sharma for his debut test against Australia instead of selecting bowlers like Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin. His motive for selecting Karn might have been different but that did not work out well in the first test match. In 33 overs he gave 143 runs. Though he picked up the wickets of David Warner and Michael Clarke but it was way too late for him as both of them have already scored 145 and 128 runs respectively.

The continuation of struggling of the Indian bowling lineup was clearly visible in the second innings as well. Karn gave 95 runs in 16 overs and picked up two wickets. Once again his wickets were of no such significant value in the match. Though the skipper proved this ability as a great batsman by scoring centuries, his decision of team selection went horrible and India lost the match by 48 runs. The tournament was an absolute nightmare for the debutant and he played for India once again.

4. Controversy related to the selection of Bharath Reddy

Samar Banerjee is the only captain from West Bengal who won the Ranji Trophy after independence. In an interview, he revealed the harsh incidents from his cricket career. In an interview, he said, ''We knew Kiri would be dropped. A day before the team selection, few players came up and said, "Sambaran we know you are in the squad, we need a treat. ''I must have spent around 400 bucks to take a few boys out for dinner and the next day, the list had Reddy's name. I think he scored 30 odd runs in 4 Tests (38)," But the end did not go according to his expectations.

He was replaced with Tamil Nadu's Bharath Reddy. Coincidentally the captain during that time, S Venkataraghavan was from Tamil Nadu as well. He also mentioned that the selector of the south zone and North zone were in his favour whereas the selector of the east zone was in the favour of the then skipper and he got to select his preferred wicketkeeper.

5. Controversy related to the selection of Rusi Jeejebhoy

One of the selection controversies in the 70s is related to Rusi Jeejebhoy and Farokh Engineer. For the 1971 tour of West Indies and Duleep Trophy, there was an empty slot for the third wicket-keeper. The team was then led by Ramesh Saxena and Daljit Singh. Rosi played in 46 first-class matches with a disappointing batting average of 10.46 whereas Farokh was playing stunningly. Though in that time batting was not necessary or essential for the keepers but still, Farokh had better ability than Rusi. Rusi, the Parsi cricketer was selected by Vijay Merchant, an icon of the Parsee community, selected Rusi as a keeper, and this decision was criticized by a lot of people back then.