NEW DELHI: Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar has criticised India’s approach after the team suffered a 0-4 T20I series defeat against England, saying sacking head coach Gautam Gambhir, captain Shreyas Iyer or a few players would be the “easy thing to do” but would not solve the real problem.India endured a miserable tour, losing the five-match series 0-4 after the opening game was washed out. The defeat came on the back of a 0-2 series loss to Ireland, meaning the reigning T20 World Cup champions failed to win a single match across the two overseas assignments.Speaking in a video posted on Instagram, Manjrekar said changing the coach, captain or players would not address the root cause of India’s struggles.“The easiest thing to do for India would be to sack Gautam Gambhir, sack the captain, sack some of the players who didn’t perform well in Ireland and England. That would be the easy thing to do,” Manjrekar said.Shreyas Iyer, who took over the T20I captaincy from Suryakumar Yadav after India’s World Cup triumph, has endured a difficult start. Under his leadership, India lost six of seven T20Is, while one match was abandoned due to rain.The heavy defeat also saw India lose the No. 1 spot in the ICC Men’s T20I rankings to England.According to Manjrekar, India’s poor performances were mainly because the team was not prepared for overseas conditions.“The right thing to do would be to identify the main reason for India’s setback. And the main reason is that these T20 matches were played. Ireland and England. Overseas conditions,” he said.He believes the players were picked mainly on the basis of their IPL performances.“Our batters and our team were poorly prepared for these conditions. Why? Because the selectors actually picked all these players based on their IPL performances,” he pointed out.Manjrekar was critical of the batting-friendly conditions in the IPL, saying they make it difficult to judge players’ ability in challenging conditions.“The IPL puts on a very heavy makeup on Indian batters, all batters. The IPL batting conditions are the easiest I’ve ever seen in my life. And that is why it flatters to deceive. And that is why you see so many batters at the top of the order doing the crazy things that they do.”He added that performances in the IPL do not always translate to success overseas.“So you don’t really know which player will do well when there is something there for the bowlers. And it’s not as easy as batting on a marble sheet as it’s in the IPL. And that is where the selectors need to be smart and pick people like Shubham Gill, who will succeed in Ireland, England, everywhere as a T20 batter,” Manjrekar said.Manjrekar concluded by saying the focus should instead be on those responsible for creating batting-friendly conditions in the IPL.“Go deeper and actually sack those guys who’ve been advising the BCCI that (batting-friendly conditions) to make IPL more popular and more commercially viable. Let’s have more fours and sixes. Let’s have more 100 plus scores,” he stated.
