NEW DELHI: After a run of disappointing performances in the current Border Gavaskar Trophy series, legendary batter Sunil Gavaskar delivered a harshly critical assessment of Mohammed Siraj and demanded that the pacer be removed from the Indian squad.
With 13 wickets in seven innings and a lack of aggression with the new ball, Siraj, a key component in the 2021 Border-Gavaskar Trophy series victory, has fallen short in the current series, adding to Jasprit Bumrah's workload.
According to Gavaskar, the right-arm quick should be informed that he is being dropped rather than rested. "I think Siraj, perhaps, needs a little bit of a break. In the sense, I am not saying a break, he needs to be told that he is left out of the team for non-performance. There has to be a situation where you can't beat around the bush.
"You need to be brutally upfront and say 'look, your performance has not been up to scratch, and therefore you are being dropped.' When you start talking about 'rest,' players get wrong ideas. They feel they don't need to up their game," Gavaskar told Star Sports.
With an average of 4.07 runs per over, Siraj has also led the unwelcome list of frontline pacers who have given the most runs in the series. In the current Boxing Day Test match, Siraj was completely out of sorts after giving up 122 runs in 23 overs without taking any wickets in the opening innings.
For the fifth and final Test in Sydney, Gavaskar has demanded that either Prasidh Krishna be added to the playing XI or Harshit Rana, who participated in the first two Test matches, returns.
"But I think Siraj needs to be told 'Look, you are not bowling as well as we expected you to on pitches that have been helpful'. That is something that needs to be told. If you want to make two changes. Prasidh Krishna and Harshit Rana to support Jasprit Bumrah. By all means, do that," he added.
