BCCI Selectors Not Happy With Changes in Afghanistan Match in Asia Cup

It’s almost two weeks over since the epic match between India and Afghanistan was played in the Super Four stage of the Asia Cup.

Cricket news: The match marked the 200th game as a captain for MS Dhoni

Now after such a long time reports have emerged that members of the selection committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) was not at all impressed with the team management’s decision of leaving out five regular players from the game.

KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Siddharth Kaul, Deepak Chahar and Khaleel Ahmed played in the match in place of top five players of the team which also included the stand-in captain Rohit Sharma.

Veteran wicketkeeper and former captain MS Dhoni was roped in as the skipper for the game. It was a special moment for him as he captained his country for the 200th time.

It was a milestone which was achieved after a long time. He became the first player from the sub-continent to captain in 200 ODIs and third in overall after Australian Ricky Ponting (230) and New Zealander Stephen Fleming (218).

“The selectors are not pleased that wholesale changes were rung in for the match and both stand-in captain Rohit Sharma and vice-captain Shikhar Dhawan sat out with MS Dhoni forced to be captain again, out of nowhere,” a top BCCI official was quoted as saying by India Today.

Dhoni’s 200th game ended as a tie as India failed to overcome Afghanistan’s score of 252 and were bowled out for the same score. Despite a good start from the openers, the second-string India side could not overcome the challenge of the spirited fight of the Afghanistan side.

It was the fifth tie for captain Dhoni which in itself was a record. Overall Dhoni has won 110 ODIs and has lost 74 games, the second-best record to Australian Ricky Ponting (165 wins).

The tie did not hurt as India had already qualified for the final by previously defeating Pakistan and Bangladesh, while Afghanistan were already out of the tournament and had only pride to play for. India eventually won the tournament by defeating Bangladesh in the final.