Former India player turned renowned commentator Sanjay Manjrekar has revealed where India lacked in the final of the inaugural ICC World Test Championship against New Zealand. He said that India played with two spinners – Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja whereas New Zealand went with an all-pace attack in overcast Southampton, which made all the difference.

However, Jadeja failed to contribute and India eventually lost the final as well.

“If you have to look at how India went about before the game started, picking two spinners was always a debatable selection especially when the conditions were overcast and the toss was delayed by a day,” Manjrekar said on ESPNcricinfo. “They picked one player for his batting, which was Jadeja, and his left-arm spin wasn’t the reason he was picked. He was picked for his batting and that is something that I am always against.”

ALSO READ: VVS Laxman Surprised With The Poor Performance Of Jasprit Bumrah

“You have got to pick specialist players in the team and if they felt that the pitch was dry and turning, they would have picked Jadeja for his left-arm spin, along with Ashwin, that would have made sense. But they picked him for his batting and I think that backfired as mostly it does,” Sanjay Manjrekar commented.

However, the veteran hoped India would do good as per the selection is concerned in their upcoming series against England in August where they will play a five-match Test series as well.

ALSO READ: Alastair Cook Predicts The Result Of Five Tests Between England And India

“Had they had a specialist batsman in Hanuma Vihari for example, who had a pretty good defence, that would have been handy. Maybe 170 could have been 220, 225 or 230, who knows? But I hope India don’t do what England have historically done, pick somebody because there is another strength that they have and that strength might just come to good use, but very rarely it does when it’s a pressure game,” Sanjay Manjrekar concluded.