IND vs SL: Aakash Chopra defends Team India and takes dig at Sri Lanka

Aakash Chopra gets into the act: Former World Cup winning captain Arujna Ranatunga’s recent statement on the BCCI sending a ‘second string’ India team to Sri Lanka is doing the rounds. Rantunga also termed it as an insult to Sri Lankan Cricket, and shared his disappointment to the SLC for accepting the tour.

However, Former India batsman Aakash Chorpra disagrees with Arjuna Ranatunga’s claim and has opted to counter the argument. Chopra mentioned that there is plenty of experience as well exuberance in the team that takes on Sri Lanka within a few days. He also spoke about the possibility of the series’ being an openly contested affair.

Aakash Chopra comes in defence

“It is absolutely right that it is not the main team, the likes of Bumrah, Shami, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja are not there. But is it really like a B-grade team? India’s probable ODI XI has played 471 ODIs in total, of course, this is not the first team.

“When Sri Lanka picks the team, it will be interesting to see how many matches in all they have played. When you try to match experience to experience, it will be a very exciting exercise,” Aakash Chopra shared.

Out of quarantine ?

Fun activities ?#TeamIndia made the most out of their day off post quarantine before they headed to the nets in Colombo ? ? – by @28anand & @ameyatilak

Watch the full video to witness how the fun unfolded ? ? #SLvIND https://t.co/k3BiqHW1VM pic.twitter.com/d7XySHAI2O

— BCCI (@BCCI) July 3, 2021

Sri Lankan Cricket is going through turmoil, be it through performances on the pitch or the antics outside of it. In the ongoing series versus England, Sri Lanka are on the verge of a clean sweep in the three-match ODI series, after getting whitewashed in the T20I series as well.

Barring that, Kusal Mendis, Niroshan Dickewella and Danushka Gunathilaka have also been suspended after they were caught breaching the bio-bubble, while, smoking outside of their hotel.

Sri Lanka should introspect

Taking all those factors into notice, Aakash Chopra spoke about the struggles of Sri Lankan cricket, and took a jibe at them for having to play World T20 Qualifiers.

“Sri Lanka will have to look inwards as well. Let’s be honest, Afghanistan doesn’t have to play the World T20 qualifiers, you have to. This is a reality. The truth is that Sri Lankan cricket is really struggling at the moment, even if you look at the England numbers now,”

IND vs SL Squad 2021

Shikhar Dhawan (Captain), Prithvi Shaw, Devdutt Padikkal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Suryakumar Yadav, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Nitish Rana, Ishan Kishan (Wicketkeeper), Sanju Samson (Wicketkeeper), Yuzvendra Chahal, Rahul Chahar, K Gowtham, Krunal Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy, Bhuvneshwar Kumar (Vice-captain), Deepak Chahar, Navdeep Saini, Chetan Sakariya

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