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All rules applicable to everyone in team except Virat Kohli: Virender Sehwag slams skipper

Sehwag expressed frustrations in the wake of Shreyas Iyer being skipped for the T20 series
Last Updated 06 December 2020, 06:49 IST

Former Indian opener Virender Sehwag came out in defense of the left-out players and criticised skipper Virat Kohli for his erratic alterations to India's Playing XI.

Sehwag expressed frustration after Shreyas Iyer, who struggled with batting during the ODI series, was skipped for the T20 series to bring in Manish Pandey.

The former opener questioned the move as Iyer had a decent record of 153 runs in five matches against New Zealand at the beginning of the year -- and over 500 runs in the recently concluded Indian Premier League.

But, in Australia, Iyer struggled to pick pace, ending with scores 2, 38 and 19 leaving him no spot in the T20 matches. Sehwag condemned this decision and, in a scathing attack on the skipper, said that all those rules were applicable to everybody in the team except Virat Kohli.

“If you talk about Shreyas Iyer, in the previous T20 series he had given a good performance, then on what basis did you not play him in this encounter. Is there any reason? I don’t think even Shreyas Iyer has the guts to go and ask why he was not played,” Sehwag said on the Sony Sports Network after the 1st T20I.

“If this decision has been taken with the team in mind then it is right else if it has been taken thinking that Shreyas Iyer does not play short-pitched bowling that well and so a chance has been given to someone else, then it will be different thinking because he has scored runs in the last few T20I matches. So, he should be given chances," the former cricketer added.

He also attacked Virat Kohli by saying, “I will say one more thing, all the rules are applicable to everyone else other than Virat Kohli, no rule is applicable to him. Neither his batting order is changed nor is he left out or given a break when he is out of form. So, that is wrong.”

Sehwag noted that Kohli should learn from his own career lows. In 2014, England, Kolhi had managed 134 runs across 10 innings. He also drew comparisons to former skipper MS Dhoni, who retired from international cricket earlier this year, saying Kohli should back the younger players and without that, India will not be able to generate good players.

“Virat Kohli has to think that in the England tour when he had flopped if he was not given opportunities after that, how would he have become such a big player,” he said.

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(Published 06 December 2020, 05:40 IST)

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