Chief Selector MSK Prasad speaks about his relationship with MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli
India Cricket Chief Selector MSK Prasad spoke publicly about his good relationship with two iconic Indian cricketers, MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli. Prasad and his selection committee have been at the receiving end of some of the biggest controversies in Indian cricket, such as the exclusion of Ambati Rayudu from the 2019 World Cup squad and the handling of wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant and Vijay Shankar.
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Speaking to the reporters, the Chief Selector spoke about the importance of advice from legendary players during his playing days and the respect he gets from Dhoni and Kohli presently. Speaking to the Mumbai Mirror, he stated,
“During this tenure, I used to take advice from legendary cricketers which helped. My relationship with MSD (MS Dhoni) and [Virat] Kohli is intact. People might write anything but when I speak to them, I know how much they respect me.”
He cleared any doubts about the pressures of dealing with high-profile players and said that being a management student had taught him well, way to deal with all sorts of player-problems. He particularly mentioned the effort put in to build the Andhra Cricket Association from scratch where he served as the director of cricket.
“I am a management student and at Andhra Cricket Association (where he was director of cricket), I dealt with much bigger issues than here."
"We built Andhra association from scratch where people were not motivated to work. When Anurag Thakur came to Andhra in 2015, he called it ‘Adarsh Cricket Association’. BCCI is an evolved place, you have mature people. I don’t think I had a tough time here because I had gone through a lot of stress working in Andhra.”
Earlier in the month, former Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh had slammed the selection panel for not understanding the mechanics behind modern-day cricket and how the current selection committee could be easily done away with by bringing in better selectors.
Yuvraj had reminded the selection panel over the overlooking of Vijay Shankar from their future plans, despite recovering from his injury. The appointment of Vikram Rathour as the batting coach didn't go down well with Yuvraj Singh either, who thought that Rathour's lack of understanding and experience of the T20 format won't be of much value for the current players.