Former India player turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has said that Harshit Rana is rightly being given opportunities across formats as well. He shared that India do not have a lot of all-format seam-bowling options at their disposal as well. However, Harshit’s selection in India’s ODI and T20I squads for the ongoing white-ball series vs Australia drew criticism on social media and from a few experts too as well.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel, ‘Aakash Chopra,’ he said, “It will happen. Let’s make a long list of fast bowlers who are close to the Indian team – (Mohammed) Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana at the moment, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah and Akash Deep. Who else? Mohammad Shami and Bhuvneshwar Kumar are not there.”
“We have forgotten Umran Malik. Khaleel (Ahmed) can come, but he is not your Test kind of bowler. Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Tushar Deshpande, Mayank Yadav, Prince Yadav, T Natarajan – whose name should I take? When you see this list, it’s not like you have a dozen bowlers standing ready. You don’t have that many. That’s why the team feels that they should back Harshit Rana if he has that game,” he further added.
However, Aakash Chopra also added that past captains like Sourav Ganguly, MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli also backed a few players, who eventually became match-winners as well.
“If someone has played more in front of a coach, captain or selector, they see more potential in him and want to back him. Sourav Ganguly also backed some players. Eventually some of them became the legends of the game. Similarly, Dhoni backed many players. They became legends of the game. Virat Kohli also backed someone. Now Shubman Gill will also back someone. Let’s not get carried away yet. He doesn’t deserve the hate. It’s not his mistake. If you have to give hate, give it to someone else, and not to him because he is not asking for him to be selected. You select him and he comes and plays. He tries to win the match, and whether he is able to do that or not is a separate issue,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
