Sanjay Manjrekar on India’s ‘hero worshiping’ cricket culture: ‘Icon players are dragging the team down’ | Cricket News

Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar has slammed country’s “hero worshipping” and “icon culture” behind India’s slump during every transition time.
Manjrekar explained how even in the hero worshipping has affected India the most in the transition phase of the Indian cricket and the icon players drag the team down. India have lost back-to-back Test series against New Zealand (0-3) at home and against Australia (1-3) away.
“The one foremost reason behind this is the icon culture we have in India and the hero worship of certain players,” he wrote in his column for Hindustan Times.
“Be it 2011-12 or now, it’s the same scenario that gets played out — iconic players featuring prominently doing the opposite of what they did their entire careers, there dragging the team down with their diminished performances.”
Manjrekar pointed out how India lost 0-8 in 2011-12 to England and Australia, where the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid struggled. However, Dravid scored four centuries in India’s 0-4 loss against England, and averaged 76.83 but in Australia he faired poorly.
“When it comes to the big players, we as a country are just not able to stay rational,” he said.
“Cricketing logic goes out of the window and then the selectors hope the player leaves on his own so that they don’t look like the villains who brutally ended the career of a great who millions of fans worship. They just fear the backlash.”
Manjrekar gave example of Australia, where an all-time great Ricky Ponting was dropped after his performance dropped. Even in this series, they dropped Nathan McSweeney after he played a fighting knock at Gabba. but was replaced a 19-year-old Sam Konstas. Then in Sydney, all-rounder Mitchell Marsh paved way for Beau Webster.
“Nathan McSweeney was dropped to get Sam Konstas in. Mitchell Marsh was dropped to get Beau Webster. Both selections did wonders to Australia’s chances of winning the series,” he said.
Manjrekar has also advised chairman of selector Ajit Agarkar to take tough decision on the current Indian icon players.
“Does Rohit Sharma still have the potential to make up for all his recent failures? I would like to think that the current selection committee has a pretty good idea about this.
“But now comes the tough part—can the committee actually take a tough decision in sync with their observations? For Mr Ajit Agarkar to take a pure cricketing decision no matter who the player is, we have to make his job easier.”

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