New Delhi: Does nepotism exists only in Bollywood or it also is present in cricket? It is a debate that stands on wobbly feet. Cricketer-turned-commentator Aakash Chopra said that there is no nepotism in Indian cricket. Speaking on his YouTube channel, Aakash said that nepotism happens at the domestic level but players don't get any favours at the highest level. ALSO READ | Aakash Chopra Brutally Destroys Troll For Calling Him Virat Kohli's "Chamcha"
"I have seen it happening in a state team where a player was a captain for a long time. He was an administrator's son, not a player's. He was not a very good player and his stats also show it. But at the highest level, it never happens. No one is given an IPL contract because he is someone's friend's son or someone's nephew," Aakash said on his Youtube show AakashVani.
The former India opener backed his case by saying that cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar's son Arjun Tendulkar is yet to play senior cricket despite bowling to England and Indian cricket team in the nets.
"Now just because he was Sunil Gavaskar's son he should have played a lot of cricket, many ODIs and Test matches. But that did not happen.
"And when he played for India, it was because he was consistently doing very well for Bengal. In fact, forget all that, he was even not playing in the Mumbai Ranji team. He was not getting a place in the Mumbai team even though he had the surname as Gavaskar," Chopra said.
Gavaskar played 11 ODI matches for India in which he scored 151 runs. However, he played 117 first-class games and scored 6938 runs at an average of 44.19.
"You can say the same thing about Arjun Tendulkar. Because he is Tendulkar's son, nothing was given to him on a platter. He didn't get an easy access to the Indian cricket team. There were no such useless selections even in the India under-19 team. Whenever the selection happens, it would be because of a sterling performance," Chopra said.
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