Having scored 604 runs at a strike rate of 175.07 in this year’s Indian Premier League (IPL) while leading Punjab Kings into this year’s final, Shreyas Iyer was expected to make the cut for India’s T20I team for the upcoming Asia Cup. However, the Indian selectors not just excluded Iyer, they did not even name him among the five reserves of the team. Iyer, thus, misses out on a chance to play in this year’s Asia Cup and making a return to the Indian T20I side. Former Indian assistant coach Abhishek Nayar expressed his disbelief at Iyer’s exclusion from the Asia Cup squad.
“I don’t know, actually, I wanted to ask that question — aapke reserve players mein kaise nahi hai woh (How is he not even in your reserve players) if he is such a strong contender. Sometimes, you know, selection meetings can be quite interesting, and the discussions that happen in them can be very interesting. But I can’t fathom, and I don’t understand, what reason can justify Shreyas Iyer not being part of that 20-member squad. I’m not even talking about the 15, I’m talking about the 20-member squad, which sends a message to Shreyas Iyer that he is not in the team’s scheme of things,” Nayar said on Star Sports.
While Iyer missed out on the Asia Cup squad with Indian selectors showing faith in the lies of Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Rinku Singh and captain Suryakumar Yadav for the middle order role in the final 15-member squad, the five reserve players list also did not have Iyer’s name.
Riyan Parag, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel, Prasidh Krishna and Washington Sundar were named as the reserves.
ALSO READ | Shreyas Iyer’s exclusion from Asia Cup squad confirmation of India’s vast talent pool in T20s
Nayar opined that the selectors may be not looking at Iyer from a T20 point of view. “Because even if things don’t work out, he is still not coming into the team. Either Riyan Parag is going to make the cut, or someone else is. So, the big question here is that maybe they are not looking at him from a T20 point of view — or perhaps any other point of view. But I always say this that any selection after a while is, ‘who you like a little more than the other’. In that regard, maybe Shreyas Iyer is not liked as much as someone else. Maybe,” Nayar added.
India’s chief selector Ajit Agarkar had shared his views about Iyer’s exclusion. “With regards to Shreyas, I mean, you need to tell him who he can replace. No fault of his, nor is it ours. It’s just that we have to pick 15 at the moment, he’ll have to wait for his chance,” Agarkar said in the press conference on Tuesday.
