'Nobody has been treated as bafflingly as Ashwin' - Sunil Gavaskar blasts Indian management over team selection following WTC 2023 final loss

Ravichandran Ashwin & Sunil Gavaskar (Source: Twitter)

India lost the World Test Championship (WTC) 2023 final against Australia by a staggering 209 runs at The Oval, and now it's time for fans and experts to dissect where they went wrong. Discussions focus on factors such as India's failure to grasp the conditions, should have bowled first, Indian pacers failed to pose a threat and top-order collapse. But among all of this, the biggest shocker was India's team selection, which left out World No. 1 Test spinner Ravichandran Ashwin.

Ashwin has over 470 Test wickets and was the third-leading wicket-taker in the 2023 WTC cycle. The right-arm spinner is a nightmare for left-handers, which is one of the main reasons his omission from the squad feels illogical as Australia had five lefties. Apart from bowling, Ashwin can also contribute with his bat, which is why he ranks second in the list of all-rounders.

Gavaskar believes India may have won if Ashwin was in the team

Considering all these facts, it is clear that India have gone tactically wrong by sidelining a gem of a player in summit shutdown. Amidst the debate over Ashwin's inclusion, legendary cricketer Sunil Gavaskar, who criticised the Indian top-order for poor shot selection and their collapse in a big match, said the veteran Indian spinner had been handled bafflingly by Indian Team management.

"India dropped Ravichandran Ashwin, the No. 1 ranked bowler in the game. The Australians had five left-handers in the team and while one leftie – Travis Head – scored a quickfire century in the first innings, another southpaw Alex Carey got a 48 in the first innings and an unbeaten 66 in the second. During that second innings effort, he also put on 93 runs with another left-hander Mitchell Starc at a time when India were looking to dismiss Australia cheaply in the second innings," Gavaskar wrote in his column for Mid-Day.

"If Ashwin had been in the team, who knows what could have happened. With the bat too, he could have contributed. No other top-class Indian cricketer in the modern era has been treated as bafflingly as Ashwin has been. Tell me if there was a No. 1 ranked batter in the team, would he have been left out of the playing XI just because in earlier times he had not got runs on a grassy pitch or if he had not scored runs on a dry spin-friendly pitch? Definitely not," he added.