Sunil Gavaskar slams ECB's decision to retire Pataudi Trophy

Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar has slammed the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) over its decision to retire the Pataudi Trophy.

Reports emerged last month that the ECB, in consultation with the BCCI, dropped the title from the bilateral red-ball series between India and England later this year.

While the two teams will play a Test series in June, it will not be called the Pataudi Trophy.

Reacting to the decision, former India captain Sunil Gavaskar described the decision as ‘disturbing.’

According to Gavaskar, the ECB’s decision would undermine Indian cricketers Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi and Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi in English and Indian cricket.

“The recent news that the ECB is going to retire the Pataudi Trophy, given to the winners of the Test series between England and India in England, is disturbing indeed,” he wrote in his column for an Indian publication.

Sunil Gavaskar added: “This is the first time one has heard of a trophy named after individual players being retired, though the decision is entirely the ECB’s, and the BCCI may well have been informed. It shows a total lack of sensitivity to the contribution made by the Pataudis to cricket in both England and India.”

Disappointed by the ECB’s decision, the former India captain hoped that other Indian players would decline the offer of having the series named after them from the ECB.

“There may well be a new trophy named after more recent players, and here’s hoping that if an Indian player has been approached, he will have the good sense to politely decline — not only out of respect for two former Indian captains but also to avoid the same fate of having a trophy named after him retired after he is gone,” Sunil Gavaskar stated.

India and England have faced off in five Pataudi Trophy series, out of which India won only once while England won the Test series in 2011, 2014, and 2018.