One man's loss is another man's mystery spinner! Yashasvi Jaiswal found himself on the wrong side of India's Champions Trophy squad, axed to make room for Varun Chakarvarthy. Sounds odd, right? Dropping an opener to squeeze in a wildcard bowler? But head coach Gautam Gambhir had his reasons - "We wanted another wicket-taking option in the middle."
With teams unfamiliar with Chakarvarthy’s bag of tricks, Gauti sees him as an X-factor. Fair enough. But here’s the real question—what exactly did Jaiswal do wrong?
Gambhir stated, “The only reason was because we wanted another wicket-taking option in the middle and we know that what Varun Chakravarthy brings to the table.
“We know that Varun can be a massive threat and with a lot of teams who haven’t played him and he could be a X-factor as well. I’m not going to say that he’s going to start and all that stuff but it’s always good to have a strong bowling line-up.
“Because we know that if he can actually get those wickets in the middle, it’s always going to be an advantage and that was one of the reasons otherwise we know that Yashasvi has got a fabulous future ahead, it’s just that we could only pick 15," Gambhir added.
Both Chakaravarthy and Jaiswal made their ODI debuts in the series against England. While the mystery spinner scalped 1 wicket in the Cuttak ODI before missing the 3rd and final match due to a calf injury, Jaiswal was out for 22 in Nagpur. He was then dropped from the team as Virat Kohli returned.
India will open its Champions League campaign against Bangladesh on February 1.
