Former India captain and chief selector Kris Srikkanth has lashed out at senior national selection committee chairman Ajit Agarkar over the exclusion of Shreyas Iyer from India’s squad for the Asia Cup 2025.Srikkanth said he could not fathom the logic behind Agarkar’s reasoning for leaving Iyer out of the 15-member squad for the continental tournament, which begins on 9 September in the UAE.
Agarkar, when explaining the decision, underlined the challenges of selecting a T20I side from a vast talent pool. He posed the question of at whose expense Iyer could be included in the final 15.
“With regard to Shreyas, who can he replace? No fault of his, nor is it ours. At the moment, you can only pick 15,” Agarkar said.
Notably, Iyer was not even part of the five-man reserves picked for the Asia Cup. Instead, India included a third wicketkeeper in Dhruv Jurel among the travelling reserves, while Iyer was overlooked.
On his YouTube show, Srikkanth was scathing in his criticism.
“On current form, Shreyas Iyer is an automatic choice. Let’s be very clear. You need to look at recent matches; there’s no point judging a player by form from a year ago. He scored 600 runs in the IPL at a strike rate of 175. Strike rate is the most important factor here,” he said.