India vs Australia: The Egregious Fallacy Behind “What About Him?”

I am as lost for words as you are, so I will try and borrow a thousand odd ones for this article.

Find Positives, Drop Prithvi Shaw-Sunil Gavaskar’s Advice for Team India

I get it, I too am shell-shocked, baffled, bamboozled, flummoxed and flabbergasted at this capitulation (there I borrowed a few of the best adjectives — thank you Navjot Singh Siddhu). I am not one to not excoriate the team for waving the white flag and folding like a pack of cards, especially when they had their noses ahead. But I see another insidious assessment creeping into the faux analysis and this post-mortem of sorts.

The “What About Him” ? What about Shubman Gill playing in place of Prithvi Shaw? What about Rishabh Pant for Wriddhiman Saha?

Gill, Rahul, Jadeja & Pant Set to Play in Boxing Day Test — Report

Let me be candid and say my pick for the first test was Gill over Shaw and Pant over Saha. I’ll get to my larger point, but let’s first start here with Shaw. Yes, his technical deficiencies were exposed and exploited by the Australians, and neither am I backing Shaw to get Gangulyesque extended chances, irrespective of performance (a trend reminiscent of Indian cricket selection of the 90s).