He decided 2015 World Cup squad in 2012: Gautam Gambhir hits out at MS Dhoni

Gautam Gambhir, who recently announced his retirement from all forms of cricket, has revealed how MS Dhoni’s “shocking” selection policy once left him confused.

Gambhir, who is currently playing his last Ranji Trophy match at his home ground opened up on an incident during the 2012 CB series in Australia. India had a forgettable performance in that tour as they were blanked 0-4 in the Test series before also losing out the ODI tri-series that involved Australia and Sri Lanka.

During that tour, India had three opening batsmen in Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag but skipper MS Dhoni decided that he would only play in order to give more opportunities to the youngsters before the 2015 World Cup. But with India failing to produce results, Dhoni was forced to recall all three in the playing XI.

But the first decision to drop all three in favour of giving opportunities to the youngsters did not at all go well with Gambhir, who believes that as a captain “if you take a decision, back your decision. Don’t back on something on which you have already decided”.

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“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,” Gambhir told India Today.

“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.

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“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,” added Gambhir.

With all the selection dilemma going on, India failed to perform well winning just three out of eight matches, while another ended in a tie. Australia beat Sri Lanka in the final to claim the trophy.

Gambhir finished as the second highest run-getter for India in that series. He scored 308 runs from seven matches at an average of 44, while top-scorer Virat Kohli made 373 runs in eight games.

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