New Delhi: Unhappy over India’s performance against Sri Lanka in the World Cup, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad on Saturday blamed poorly performing senior cricketers of the Indian team.
He said that the senior cricketers are only making money through endorsements and should to be replaced by youngsters.
"Senior players should be removed and young guys should be brought in," PTI quoted Lalu Prasad as saying.
"Their advertisements should be stopped. That is the main problem. They are only interested in earning money," he added.
Lalu, in an apparent dig to Sachin Tendulkar, said top players were getting out on zero and the team was being defeated by teams like Bangladesh resulting in facing premature exit from the mega event.
"I think I could have played better than the senior players," Lalu Prasad said in a lighter vein.
He also questioned selectors' wisdom for excluding middle-order batsman Mohammad Kaif from the team.
The hopes of more than a billion cricket fans to see their team lift the World Cup for the second time almost came to an end with Sri Lanka winning the Group B match at Queen's Park Oval in Port of Spain by 69 runs to all but end the journey of the Men in Blue in the tournament.
Chasing a fairly competitive target of 255 in 50 overs after skipper Rahul Dravid chose to field first, the Indian team were bowled out for only 185 runs in 43.3 overs for their worst performance in the World cup since the 1979 tournament.
In the 1979 World Cup they had failed to win even one match.
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