Gautam Gambhir slams Ravi Shastri for his "childish and immature" comments
Former Indian batsman Gautam Gambhir has come out and slammed Ravi Shastri for his comments about the current team being the best Indian team overseas in the last 15 years.
Talking to CricketNext, Gambhir, who recently retired from professional cricket, took a dig at Shastri by pinpointing the success, or the lack of it, as a player and called his statement childish and immature.
"I'm sure that people who haven't won anything give these kinds of statements. I don't know what Shastri has achieved in his career apart from winning the World Championship in Australia. I don't think he was a part of an overseas series win. If you haven't won anything yourself, you end up giving this kind of statement. I'm sure people wouldn't have taken this seriously. I'm sure he must not have seen enough cricket. If he had he seen enough cricket, he wouldn't have given that statement."
"It was very childish. Even if you had won 4-1, you won't say this is the best Indian team touring abroad. You would still stay humble and say we want to take this, we want to go forward, we want to keep improving. You wouldn't say this is the best Indian team ever overseas. This is childish. I'm sure people wouldn't have taken this seriously. I don't know about other people but I didn't take it seriously because it was a very immature statement," he said.
During India's tour of England earlier this year, Shastri went overboard in praising the team by saying, "the endeavour of this team is to travel well, compete and win. If you look at the last three years, we have won nine matches overseas and three series. I can’t see any other Indian team in the last 15-20 years that has had the same run in such a short time, and you have had some great players playing in those series."
His statements did go well with a few former Indian cricketers including Sunil Gavaskar and Sourav Ganguly as they criticized the Indian coach for his comments.