PTI
 
New Delhi, Jun 30: Former captain Kapil Dev on Thursday said the Indian team management should desist from frequently chopping and changing the team and focus on building the players' confidence so as to get back to its winning ways.

"I don't know what the problem is but I am surprised that an all-rounder of the calibre of Irfan Pathan is not finding a place in the team," Kapil said.

"The management's job is to give confidence to the players. How come someone like Pathan is not having confidence?" Kapil, who held the Indian record for most wickets with 434 Test scalps for more than a decade before Anil Kumble surpassed him in 2004, said that with two all-rounders - Pathan and Mahendra Singh Dhoni - in the team, five bowlers could be played.

"When you have two all-rounders, you don't need seven batsmen. Five will do," the 47-year-old, who led India to its only World Cup win in 1983, said.

"What I can't see is how experienced players like Harbhajan Singh and Irfan Pathan are not playing. Something is going wrong. People who have done well for the team are not playing," he told reporters here.

Asked what he made of coach Greg Chappell's comment that Pathan was low on confidence in the series, he said "I wouldn't say (make such a comment). I will keep a hand on his back and tell him that he can perform better than he has done.

"Such comments can break a player's confidence. Cricket is a game of confidence", he added.