The former chairman of the Indian Cricket Team selection committee, MSK Prasad recently took part in an interview after Sunil Josh replaced him as the head of the selection panel. Prasad spoke about the performances of the Indian team where he commented on the two of the team’s legendary players, Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni. While speaking to TOI, MSK Prasad disclosed it was not easy to find a replacement for Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni in the Indian team.

Prasad said, “MSD & Yuvraj are legends of Indian cricket and I don’t really see anyone stepping into those shoes so easily. It is tough to deal with it. Our fundamental job is to identify fresh talent, groom him and induct him when the need arises and that is what we have done.”

However, the team tried a lot of players like Axar Patel, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Vijay Shankar and Washington Sundar to fill the place of Yuvraj Singh but apart from Hardik, none of them could do well. He even talked about the decision of dropping the experienced players like Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin from the Indian limited-overs team. He also mentioned that it was the toughest decision of his time as the chief selector as well.

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He added, “Dropping Ashwin and Jadeja from white-ball cricket or preparing a successor for MS Dhoni— both were challenging as we are talking about legends who have been instrumental in taking Indian cricket to great heights.”

As he looks back now, he is happy and proud how he along with his colleagues Devang Gandhi, Jatin Paranjpe, Gagan Khoda and Sarandeep Singh created a good future in domestic cricket as well.

“We had a very clear plans and shared the roles and accordingly I posted the selectors for the domestic games. My strength had been my colleagues whose hardwork & commitment had helped in building this wonderful Indian team across all formats,” MSK Prasad concluded.