"Even I have a good record in Chennai"- Virender Sehwag takes a dig at LSG management for leaving out Quinton de Kock for IPL 2023 Eliminator

Former Indian opener Virender Sehwag was baffled when Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) skipper Krunal Pandya said after the loss against Mumbai Indians (MI) that they left out star opener Quinton de Kock due to Kyle Mayers' record in Chennai.

Mayers had played just one innings at the Chepauk before, where he scored a fine half-century. However, Sehwag slammed this thinking from the management and spoke about how crucial current form of De Kock was in the context of a knockout game.

Speaking to Cricbuzz after the game, here's what Virender Sehwag had to say about Quinton de Kock getting dropped:

"Even I have a good record in Chennai as I hit 319. But it doesn't mean that even today I will go out there and score. Current form also matters and I feel Lucknow shot themselves in their own foot (by dropping De Kock)."

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Virender Sehwag on the mistake made by Rohit Sharma

While MI had an almost perfect game against LSG, Virender Sehwag feels that captain Rohit Sharma could have avoided bowling the inexperienced Hrithik Shokeen inside the powerplay. The off-spinner bowled just one over, but conceded 18 runs and was carted to all parts of the ground by Marcus Stoinis.

On this, Sehwag stated:

"One move I was disappointed with was to see Hrithik Shokeen bowl to an international star like Marcus Stoinis within the powerplay. If you wanted to bowl a spinner you should have turned around to Piyush Chawla who has the experience. With a spread out field after the powerplay, maybe Shokeen would have done better. So that's one area where Rohit Sharma made a mistake."

Mumbai Indians might make just one change ahead of their Qualifier 2 against the Gujarat Titans (GT), with left-arm spinner Kumar Kartikeya coming in for Hrithik Shokeen, who failed to impress in the Eliminator.