Former Indian cricketer and former chief selector of the Indian cricket team, Sandeep Patil has hugely criticized the Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli and head coach Ravi Shastri for team’s disaster performances in the ongoing five-match Test series on the English tour.

After losing the thrilling first Test by 31 runs at Edgbaston (Birmingham), India suffered a humiliating defeat by an innings and 159 runs in the second Test at Lord’s (London).

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To share his thought about the ongoing five-match Test series, where England is currently leading by 2-0 after the two Tests, Sandeep Patil has taken skipper Kohli’s comment before leaving India for the UK tour and hugely criticized him for that comment.

Before leaving for the UK tour, Kohli had told in the press conference, “People have forgotten the Champions Trophy was also played in England. I was asked what I would do when I landed there, and I said I wanted to walk around the streets with a cup of coffee. My thinking is very different.”

Patil took that note and wrote in his column for the Quint, “We all clearly remember captain Virat Kohli and coach Ravi Shastri’s joint press conference before leaving for the tour of England earlier this summer. One bold statement stood out, ‘We have enough days to acclimatise in England and we are going to enjoy coffee’.

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“Seeing the performance of the Indian team in the first two Tests so far, the team really seems to have taken their skipper’s statement seriously – they are truly only enjoying the coffee in English conditions.”

Patil has further criticized Kohli and Shastri for shortening the only multiple-days warm-up game prior to Test series. After the completion of limited-overs series in England, India had the initial schedule of only one four-day warm-up game but the team leaders decided to cut one more day of that warm-up game as it became a three-day warm-up game.

Feeling surprised, Patil wrote, “It is puzzling that when the BCCI provided the team the opportunity to play practice games, as was requested, coach Ravi Shastri and captain Kohli instead felt that rest was the best option for the team and played just a truncated three-day practice game in the 14 days between the ODI and Test series.

“Great Indian cricketing idols Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly all voiced their concerns, but the current Indian team never felt like taking their advice.”

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Patil is especially feeling disheartened with the present Indian cricket team’s performances due to most of the cricketers had made their initial international appearances during his tenure as chief selector.

Patil wrote on it, “We are 2-0 down in the series with three more matches to go and I do feel especially bad because all these players who have extraordinary talent got themselves selected during my tenure as chief selector. It amazes me that these extremely-talented cricketers, in the two Tests so far, have been looking like they are playing in fear, as if they are playing their debut match! As I said earlier, cricket is a cruel game. A game of glorious uncertainties. Yesterday’s heroes have become today’s zeroes. Seventy percent of this England tour is already over and we are still sipping coffee.”