NEWS
Follow UsIndia’s assistant coach Abhishek Nayar feels that once senior players understand the 'team first' policy, it is easier for the coaches to then tell them why they are not part of the playing XI in certain matches.
Nayar gave the example of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, neither of whom could make it to India’s playing XI at Perth for the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against Australia.
The former India all-rounder explained that head coach Gautam Gambhir and regular skipper Rohit Sharma have inculcated the spirit of team first, with individual successes not getting priority.
"It's only tough when you have seniors who don't understand it. But when you have seniors like Jaddu and Ash who understand what the team is trying to do, it becomes very easy, because the team first policy is something that Rohit and Gauti bhai believe in," Nayar was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times ahead of India’s two-day practice pink-ball match in Canberra.
Ahead of both Ashwin and Jadeja, Washington Sundar was preferred as the lone spinner in the team which had three specialist pacers Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj and Harshit Rana and a seam-bowling all-rounder in Nitish Kumar Reddy.
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