Ravindra Jadeja was selected to participate in the WTC finals, but this led to the opposite results: Sanjay Manjrekar

Former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar said that Ravindra Jadeja was included in the WTC Finals XI because of his stroke, but the planning fell through, adding that a specialist like Hanuma Vihari could help India add a few more runs on the board.

Jadeja, who scored 31 runs (15 in 1st innings and 16 in 2nd) in the historic match, was not picked for his left-arm spin bowling in the overcast English conditions, Manjrekar added.

“If you have to look at how India went about before the game started, picking two spinners was always a debatable selection especially when the conditions were overcast and the toss was delayed by a day,” Manjrekar told ESPNcricinfo.

“They picked one player for his batting, which was Jadeja, and his left-arm spin wasn’t the reason he was picked. He was picked for his batting and that is something that I am always against.”

“You have got to pick specialist players in the team and if they felt that the pitch was dry and turning, they would have picked Jadeja for his left-arm spin, along with Ashwin, that would have made sense. But they picked him for his batting and I think that backfired as mostly it does,” Manjrekar added.

“Had they had a specialist batsman in Hanuma Vihari for example, who had a pretty good defence, that would have been handy. Maybe 170 could have been 220, 225 or 230, who knows?” he added.

“But I hope India don’t do what England have historically done, pick somebody because there is another strength that they have and that strength might just come to good use, but very rarely it does when it’s a pressure game,” he said.

India conceded a 32-run first innings and then got bundled out for 170 in the second innings on the Reserve Day of the rain-marred match. With almost 2 sessions left, New Zealand chased down the 139-run target with 8 wickets remaining on Wednesday.