India have been fortunate enough to be the talent factory that it is when it comes to cricket. From the yesteryears of Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar to the progressing stars like Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal, the dearth of talent has never touched Indian cricket. However, the seeds planted by Sourav Ganguly led to perhaps the greatest golden generation of Men in Blue that was ultimately led by MS Dhoni after 2008.
The likes of Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan and so on were going strong at that time. A group that was the world’s numero uno Test side for a brief moment.
2011 ODI WC cherished India’s golden generation
But the crowning moment came when Dhoni’s men ended the ODI World Cup drought of almost three decades in 2011. The entire nation was enthralled by the glitz of the triumph, but little did it know that only three players would remain for the next ODI World Cup (2015). Only Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin and Dhoni himself played the edition in Oceania.
The selectors swiftly moved on from the ‘OGs’, and this was recently criticised by Yograj Singh. While his son, Yuvraj Singh, made a heartening comeback despite being diagnosed with cancer, the other legends were phased out of the team.
“Careers of 7 players put into gutter”
While speaking to InsideSport, Yograj riposted that the selectors moved away from the legends of Indian cricket right away the ODI World Cup 2011. He even pointed out the incident when Mohinder Amarnath, who was the BCCI selector in 2011 and 2012, wanted to sack MS Dhoni.
“You (BCCI selectors) just destroyed these boys for no reason,” claimed Yograj Singh while speaking exclusively to InsideSport. “Boys like Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Mohammed Kaif, VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid. You just made them go after 2011.”
“You just destroyed the team after the 2011 World Cup. The careers of 7 players were put into the gutter. That is why were are struggling. We lost 5 series when MS Dhoni was the captain and he was told he would be replaced by Mohinder Amarnath, but that’s not the way to do it.”
Yograj Singh might have built an aura on his unfiltered views but his comments about phasing out the careers of different legends aren’t shocking. The likes of Gautam Gambhir, VVS Laxman, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag didn’t get to celebrate their farewell matches. Within a span of 18 months or so after the World Cup victory at home, almost all the cricketers were out of contention or were phased out.
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