Ravi Shastri simplifies raging Rohit Sharma or Ajinkya Rahane selection debate

In an interview to The Indian Express, just after his retirement, he had said: “Say something like a KP (Kevin Pietersen) issue was on and you know what they want to ask you. It mostly comes as the third question. They would ask: So what do you think about tomorrow? What about your form? I almost want to tell them, please ask the question and save everyone the trouble. You come out with it, I will come out with it too and we all can go. We are all wasting 10 minutes of our lives.”

Back to Wanderers, where the Rohit vs Rahane question was fourth, and how we were made to believe that it was a lame debate cooked up the media. As for the team management, it always went for the best option. The coach’s answer had no statistics, no insights into decision-making, not even seconding the captain’s theory of picking players on their current form. Shastri loves to keep it simple.

“If Ajinkya had played first, and not done well, you would have asked me the same question: why Rohit hasn’t played. Rohit played, he didn’t do well, so now you are asking me why Ajinkya didn’t play. The same would have happened with the fast bowlers. So when you have choices, the team management discusses what the best option is, and they stick by it and they go by it.”

The small matter of Bhuvneshwar Kumar doing well in the first Test and getting dropped in the second would have required a different answer. But then there is always the varying conditions argument, the ‘horses for courses’ phrase or the good old stonewalling.

The issue about India’s constant chopping and changing too got raised at the press conference.

Q: Doesn’t India change its team too often abroad, not allowing its players to settle down and denying them the time to adjust?

Shastri: Chopping and changing overseas is easier. In India you don’t need to chop and change because you know what the conditions are. Overseas, you go on current form and you go on conditions and you see which player can adapt to certain conditions quicker than the other. What are the overhead conditions for which bowler to play as opposed to what kind of track you will get. Or, where you need a bowler with bounce, or (if) you need a bowler with swing. So that’s where the chopping and changing starts, my friend.

The gentle looseners, those initial questions that Swann talks about were about the mood in the team before the final Test of the series that they have already lost and how tough it was to make a comeback overseas.

The mood remained upbeat: “When you don’t believe you can win you don’t look forward to a Test match, as simple as that.” Shastri always keeps it simple.

The second answer had a half-excuse. Once you give an excuse and follow it up saying that this isn’t excuse, it no longer is a full-blown excuse. “In hindsight I would say another 10 days of practice here would have made a difference. But that’s no excuse. The pitch we play on, it’s the same for both sides and I would rather focus on the 20 wickets we have taken.”

As for the Wanderers pitch, it has lots of grass but Shastri isn’t moaning. “There is grass on the track and you expect that overseas. We are not here to moan about the tracks because like I said at the start of the game both teams play on the same surface. We are not here to complain, we have taken 20 wickets. When you take 20 wickets you have a chance to win. If we had batted better we might have well done that.”

Shastri always keeps it simple.