“I am not very happy with his fitness, to be honest. I want 100% fit players in the team. Even if he has a slight niggle, he should inform the coach, the captain or the selection committee. If players are unfit, they are letting the Indian team down. And Munaf did just that, he was not 100% fit,” Vengsarkar told The Indian Express.

India’s bowling spearhead last year, the village to West Indies hero, Munaf missed three ODIs here and the first two Tests due to a “bruised ankle” during the second one-dayer in Durban on November 22, and ended up bowling just one over yesterday during South Africa’s successful run chase to wrap the series here 2-1.

“He was saying he was 100% fit, John Gloster (the physio) was saying he was 100% fit. But you could see with the naked eye that he wasn’t. You just can’t lie like that, he was virtually limping. You could see that he was not putting 100% on his follow-through. These things shouldn’t be allowed at all,” said Vengsarkar.

“Munaf is an important member of the team, he is a top class bowler. But we could have sent him back (soon after he got injured). However, we were told he will be fit in time for the second Test match. We could not pick him in Durban because VRV Singh bowled well in the first Test match, which we won. So we said, let him be 200% fit for the last Test match. A strong message should be sent out now, that players shouldn’t hide their fitness levels,” added the former Indian captain.

Then, opening up for the first time on the selection drama that preceded the final Test — he had pressed for the exclusion of an out-of-form Sehwag — Vengsarkar said, “We have so many discussions. But this case, the captain had so much confidence in him, I didn’t want to be a spoke in the wheel. It is the captain’s call because he is the one who is leading the team out there. I expressed my opinion because this is a very important Test match, but he had something else in mind. Fair enough, because at the end of the day, we are here to support the Indian team.”

What about Harbhajan Singh? Wouldn’t the ace off-spinner have made a huge difference on the dusty Newlands surface? “Yeah, but the thing is that Sehwag was finally picked because he could bowl his off-spin. I was told he bowled very well in the West Indies, I was not there. Besides, what we thought was he would help in scoring some runs also. That is why Harbhajan was not picked,” he said. It’s another matter that Sehwag came up with just 44 runs in the match and bowled just one over in the second innings. But, according to Vengsarkar, the turning point was the crucial session between lunch and tea on the fourth day, when Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar struggled against debutant left-arm spinner Paul Harris. Just 24 runs came in 88 minutes before Dravid got out with the team’s score at 114 and Tendulkar seven runs later — the second innings collapse for 169 virtually cost India the match.

“When you are in a situation where a left-arm spinner is bowling into the rough, you have to open up, make the bowler change his line, bowl somewhere else. But if that bowler is bowling there all the time, and you are not doing anything about it, obviously you are putting yourself under pressure. The important thing in cricket is you have to rotate the strike, you have to make the bowler think all the time. That didn’t happen,” said Vengsarkar.

And the final verdict? “It’s unfortunate because this was the best opportunity for India ever to win a series against in South Africa. We played so well in the first innings putting up 414 runs and then taking a lead of 41 runs. We were absolutely on top in the first three days, but during the post lunch session on the fourth day, we really messed it up.”