Although not intentionally, India batter KL Rahul’s poor form has managed to kick-start an online battle between former India pacer Venkatesh Prasad and former India batter Aakash Chopra.
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The “toxic” nature of the contest has witnessed the use of words such as “vile”, “personal agenda” and “mobilising the internet mob” and use of disrespectful expressions and tone. While Prasad is putting out his viewpoints on social media platform Twitter, Chopra is using both Twitter and streaming platform YouTube to counter him.
It all started after Prasad highlighted Rahul’s “torrid run” and team management’s “rigidity” after the former flopped in the first innings of the recently concluded second Test match against India in Delhi.
Chopra found a fault with Prasad’s “timing” with respect to him criticizing an Indian vice-captain on the second day of a five-day match. Chopra further opined that Prasad, being a former international cricketer himself, could have waited for the culmination of the match before criticizing any player.
Rahul, unsurprisingly, faltered in the second innings as well to go 10 consecutive Test innings without even touching the 25-run mark. Sacked as the vice-captain subsequently, there’s a chance that Rahul could be benched in the third Test beginning from March 1 in Indore.
Venkatesh Prasad Twitter reaction after Aakash Chopra accuses him of peddling agenda against KL Rahul
It was this morning that Chopra uploaded a video in response to each of Prasad’s tweets in a thread on Rahul. The pair has since been taking jibes at one another before meaninglessly mentioning how they have immense respect and admiration for each other.
Chopra, who accused Prasad of “lacking context” in his criticism, claimed to be sharing precise and unfiltered numbers as opposed to Prasad. An almost 13-minute long video received a fitting retaliation in the form of a Twitter thread where Prasad blamed Chopra for misquoting him and contradicted him for a decade-old tweet featuring Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane.
So my friend Aakash Chopra after making a vile video on YouTube this morning where he calls me an agenda peddle, conveniently and cleverly misquotes me, removes Mayank’s average of 70 at home, wants to gag views which are not in line with what he believes but wanted Rohit out pic.twitter.com/2HwFLMgvmd
— Venkatesh Prasad (@venkateshprasad) February 21, 2023
[Click on the tweet to read the full conversation on Twitter]
Who should replace KL Rahul in 3rd Test?
Considering the number of tweets that the two have posted lately, picking a winner among them in a daunting task. What is, however, not daunting at all is picking Rahul’s replacement for the upcoming match.
In spite of both Prasad and Chopra pondering over Shikhar Dhawan, Mayank Agarwal and Rahane’s stats, the latter was right in saying as to how neither of the three is in the immediate scheme of things in the Test squad.
Dhawan’s ship in Test cricket appears to have been sailed as he hasn’t played a first-class match in over three years. Highest run-scorer in Ranji Trophy 2022-23, Agarwal could earn a Test comeback in the near future but he can’t replace Rahul in the third Test without being named in the squad. Even Rahane enjoyed a decent Ranji season but doesn’t look like making a comeback right away.
Therefore, in-form batter Shubman Gill should be given an opportunity in place of Rahul at the Holkar Stadium. Keeping aside all the talks of potential, home record, overseas record, SENA record etc., one really hopes for sense to prevail in the form of the Indian team management taking this call on purely on “current form”.
That being said, even Indian team managements in the recent years have been guilty of contradicting their statements on more occasions than one. In spite of the fact that captain Rohit Sharma and head coach Rahul Dravid publically backed Rahul after the last match, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are correct in doing so.
