'Careers of 7 players were...': Yograj Singh attacks India's former selectors for mishandling senior players under MS Dhoni's captaincy

Yograj Singh, father of former India all-rounder Yuvraj Singh, doesn't mince his words. And when the topic is Indian cricket, specific memories are locked in his mind. One of those is regarding the 2011-12 phase. After a successful ODI World Cup campaign in 2011, India were on a high as they travelled to England for an all-format tour with the no.1 Test ranking up for grabs. 

 

However, injuries to key players and an ageing side struggled as India were blanked 0-4 in the four-match series, and the same fate followed in Australia during another four-match series. All this left the then-skipper MS Dhoni under the firing line, despite having become a World Cup-winning captain not too long ago. 

 

Mohinder Amarnath, who was part of the selection committee at the time, has often spoken about how Dhoni's inevitable exit as captain was halted only due to the intervention of then-BCCI President N. Srinivasan. However, changes had to be rung, and a plethora of India's players were either dropped or announced their respective retirements. Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman retired in 2012, while the likes of Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, and Harbhajan Singh were soon phased out from all formats. Yuvraj Singh, meanwhile, did make a couple of comebacks after recovering from cancer but couldn't get back to his glory days thereafter.

 

Dwelling on this topic in a chat with InsideSport, Yograj took a jab at the former selection panel, claiming that their actions ruined so many careers.

 

“You (BCCI selectors) just destroyed these boys for no reason,” remarked Yograj with a visible air of anger. 

 

“Boys like Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Mohammed Kaif, VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid. You just made them go after 2011.”

 

“You just destroyed the team after the 2011 World Cup. The careers of 7 players were put into the gutter. That is why we were struggling. We lost 5 series when MS Dhoni was the captain and he was told he would be replaced by Mohinder Amarnath, but that’s not the way to do it.”

 

Currently, India are on the cusp of another transition as they were in 2012-13. After losing six of their last eight Tests, including a home whitewash loss to New Zealand and a humiliating away Test series defeat in Australia, the team saw multiple retirements of senior players. Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Ravichandran Ashwin all made their exit from the longest format with Shubman Gill appointed as the new Test captain. 

 

The first game of the five-match Test series against England starts on Friday (June 20) in Leeds.

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