No half measures, drop them or take them: Kapil Dev

Kapil Dev has said it before. Here he reiterated his stand, on the Indian cricket Board’s decision to rest Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly

Kapil Dev has said it before. Here he reiterated his stand, on the Indian cricket Board’s decision to rest Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, yet again today.

Even as the Board insists that it has ‘rested’ and not ‘dropped’ the two, for the Bangladesh ODIs, legendary all-rounder Kapil reckons it’s high time the cricket bosses call a spade a spade.

“They (Tendulkar, Ganguly) haven’t played so much cricket in the last six months that they now need to be rested. They simply have been dropped,” a candid Kapil told mediapersons this morning after arriving in the city. “For me, there are no half measures. You either drop them, or you take them in the team. There’s nothing called rested,” he said.

Story continues below this ad

Kapil, who is the chairman of the National Cricket Academy (NCA), is in the city as visiting coach for the Bangalore-based academy’s East Zone leg Under-19 camp here.

As a shake-up following the World Cup debacle, Tendulkar and Ganguly were given the axe for the three-match ODI series in Bangladesh, while other regular names too were scratched out — namely, Ajit Agarkar, Irfan Pathan and Harbhajan Singh. However, it was officially announced that Tendulkar and Ganguly were merely being ‘rested’.

“Rules can’t be different for different cricketers,” he fumed, hinting that the BCCI could be trying to shield the senior twosome after choosing to drop them from the one-dayers. The Haryana Hurricane was in an unforgiving mood today, as he picked out the current Indian team for some severe criticism. “This team is not confident at the moment, after what happened in the World Cup,” Kapil said, adding: “They now need a good series, and they have to ensure that there are no further goof-ups.”