To hell with what people have to say: Shastri claps back at trolls

Mumbai: Ravi Shastri has regularly found himself under the firing line when results have not gone in favour of the Indian cricket team. The 58-year-old recently received a heavy backlash from fans back home after England thrashed India 4-1 during the five-match Test series, with many demanding for him to be sacked.
Ever since taking over the coaching reigns from Anil Kumble, Shastri has done very little to stamp an impression with even players like Sourav Ganguly calling the head coach to be answerable for defeats. However, Shastri hit back at trolls saying he is not worried about his job as long as he is performing his best.
“I sleep absolutely sound as I am used to my era where you would have one or two papers only so you pick it up and read it. So I have time only for that. I don’t have time for anything else. I may be on Twitter or Instagram….I only tweet ..I don’t read anything. Go hell with what people have to say as long as you are confident of what you are doing. You know that you are giving your 100% to the job you are doing. Rest is….I am not worried at all. If you start worrying about that, you start messing up a lot of other things…..so I say ignorance is bliss,” he was quoted as saying to Gulf News.
Shastri also revealed why India skipper Virat Kohli was dropped from the recently-concluded Asia Cup.
“Virat needed this rest. Physically he is a bull. You can’t give him out of the ground. And the thing with Virat is if he plays, then you know the level of intensity he brings. So it was a case of just mental fatigue, giving him a break, take your mind off cricket and then come back fresh. And we will have to do it with a lot of other players. You know like Bumah (Jasprit Bumrah), Bhuvi (Bhuvneshwar Kumar), we have to sustain them and keep them energetic”, he added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Kashmir Monitor staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)