‘Nitish Reddy did well… he’s never going to be as good as Shubman Gill’: Manjrekar lambasts Gambhir, Rohit’s selection

Sanjay Manjrekar lambasted India’s team combination at MCG after defeat in the Boxing Day Test, which has put him in a tricky spot in the World Test Championship Final race. India dropped Shubman Gill for the crucial clash and went for a spin-bowling all-rounder in Washington Sundar to strengthen their bowling. The visitors crumbled under pressure during the 340-run chase and were bundled out for just 155 in the second innings. They felt the absence of an extra specialist batter on the surface, which doesn’t have much for the spinners.

Manjrekar was not impressed with India for choosing bowling all-rounders like Nitish Kumar Reddy and Washington Sundar over specialist batter Gill. However, he feels the Nitish gamble paid well, as the young all-rounder scored a brilliant century to rescue the visitors in the first innings.

“You tried to address the batting uncertainties by getting a bowler who can bat. Nitish Kumar Reddy in the side at the expense of Shubman Gill. So, they left out a proper batter and in hindsight, you’d think on a pitch like this, the flattest pitch on all five days so far in the series, Shubman Gill would have been handy,” Manjrekar told ESPNCricinfo.

However, Manjrekar claimed that having Sundar would have never filled the spot for top-order star Shubman Gill.

“Nitish Kumar Reddy did well and thankfully that helped matters. But it’s an approach that never works where Washington Sundar in the end was playing as a batter, and he’s never going to be as good as a top-order batter like Shubman Gill,” he added.

‘Huge difference between Bumrah and the rest’: Manjrekar

The former cricketer also pointed out that there is a big difference between the quality of Jasprit Bumrah and other Indian bowlers, including Mohammed Siraj, and said the current Indian bowling attack didn’t look adequate to put up a challenge against Australia.

“There is a huge difference between Bumrah and the rest. Siraj, despite him being around and he’s a fine bowler, but there’s still a big distance between Siraj and Bumrah. Plus, when you look at Mitchell Starc and Siraj, Akash Deep and Scott Boland, overall the (Australian) seam attack is looking a lot better. Nathan Lyon as a spinner in these conditions is better than Washington and Ravindra Jadeja. So India will go into the final Test match knowing that their bowling attack is not adequate,” he added.