Recently retired Gautam Gambhir has criticised Mahendra Singh Dhoni for his captaincy decisions during the tri-series in Australia in 2012.
Talking to India Today, Gambhir revealed that Dhoni had told him that he could not fit in him and Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag in the playing XI for the ODI series and it came as a massive shock to him.
“In the 2012 Tri-series in Australia, Dhoni declared that he can’t play all three (Gambhir, Sachin and Sehwag) of us together as he was looking ahead at the 2015 World Cup. It was a massive shock, I think it would have been a massive shock for any cricketer. I have not heard anyone be told in 2012 that they would never be a part of the 2015 World Cup. I always had the impression that if you keep scoring runs, age is a just a number,” said Gambhir.
“If you have the skills to score the runs and you are not a liability on the field, you can go on to play as long as you want. This was always told to us and even in Australia we got to know that all the three can’t play together, and we eventually got to play together.
“When we were in a desperate need to win a game, I remember in Hobart, Viru and Sachin opened and I batted at three with Virat batted at four. India won that game and we had to chase in 37 over. At the start of the series, we didn’t play together, it was a rotation thing. When it was a desperate moment, MS had to play three of us. If you take a decision, back your decision, stick to it. Don’t back on something on which you have already decided.
“First you decided that you won’t play the three of us together, then you decided that you are going to play the three of us together. Either the original decision was wrong, or the second decision was wrong. He took that decision as a captain and it was a shock to all three of us,” Gambhir added.
India had eventually failed to qualify for the final with Australia defeating Sri Lanka in best-of-three matches to lift the trophy with a scoreline of 2-1.
