England not a popular touring side: Sunil Gavaskar

Former India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar has said that Team India should be ready for plenty of negatives from England in the upcoming Test series, and insisted that the Englishmen are not a popular touring side.

His comments came in reply to Michael Vaughan’s tweet, which blasted India’s tactic not to play any regular spinner in the warm-up game. Talking to NDTV, Gavaskar slammed Vaughan for making such statements, and stated that only Indian selectors are the ones
to decide on combination of the side.

"Are former England players going to tell us what team to play? Are they going to pick our side for us. I mean these sort of comments should just be ignored," he said.

"It is entirely India’s prerogative. May be the selectors wanted to try these players. Indian selectors will do what is good for the Indian team."

Vaughan, who had guided England to Ashes triumph during his captaincy, described it as a ‘pathetic tactic’, adding that it is completely against the spirit of the game to not play any spinner in the warm-up game between England and India A.

The move was clearly made to not give the Poms any chance to adjust to the spinning conditions in India. Gavaskar, however, defended this strategy, and stated that England always come up with negatives when it comes to play abroad.

He uttered that India have done nothing wrong in taking the home advantage. Meanwhile, he expressed his concerns over the tour planning. The English team reached India almost three weeks before the first Test, which is scheduled to be played in Ahmedabad.

"I am telling you expect a lot of negativity during this tour because this is England’s specialty and that’s the reason they are not a popular touring team," the former cricketer explained.

"Of course the home team will always have the edge because they are familiar with the conditions and that is why I think England have done very well coming here three weeks before they play their first Test match."

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Posted by Rana Nasir Ghafoor on Nov 3 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry