Shamik Chakrabarty, Mumbai
Some years ago, in 2018-19, when Ajit Agarkar was the Mumbai chief selector, he reportedly had a fallout with Shreyas Iyer.
As the story goes, the latter was feeling tired after a long flight from New Zealand where he went for an India A team tour. Shreyas decided to opt out of Mumbai’s next match against Chhattisgarh that was starting in three days. He had a valid reason for his case to be considered, but the message, according to someone in the know, was communicated to Agarkar differently by a then Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) official. Agarkar took exception and dropped Shreyas from the squad. From the player’s part, it was remiss of him not to seek an audience with the chief selector and clarify the whole thing.
Misunderstanding reared its head again during the 2023-24 season, when Shreyas missed Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy quarter-final against Baroda. He was suffering from back spasms, but there was no injury report from the NCA because Shreyas didn’t visit the Academy. He was building his load under Abhishek Nayar at the Kolkata Knight Riders’ training facility in Mumbai and was struggling to face more than 60 balls at a stretch. But Agarkar, now the head of the national senior men’s selection committee, probably wasn’t briefed about the situation properly. He dropped Shreyas from the BCCI’s central contract list. The 30-year-old has been reinstated this term, but his Asia Cup omission gave the feeling of déjà vu.
Shreyas scored 604 runs at a strike-rate of 175 for Punjab Kings in this year’s IPL. That he is not among the top 20 T20 cricketers in the country, including the standbys, beggars belief. “It’s no fault of his (Shreyas),” Agarkar told reporters after the team selection on Tuesday. “Nor is it our fault. Got to tell me who he can replace? At the moment, he will have to wait for his chance.”
On the face of it, the players picked ahead of Shreyas aren’t better than him. The logic of continuity and not upsetting the team balance doesn’t hold water, for Shubman Gill has been brought back to the T20I fold as the vice-captain. He is likely to open the innings in the Asia Cup, along with Abhishek Sharma, at the expense of Sanju Samson. Nothing wrong with that, for Gill is unadulterated quality and deserves his place in the side, playing XI to be precise.
Shreyas, too, is top quality in white-ball cricket. Nobody plays spin better than him — a key factor in Dubai. Very few manage the middle-overs better than him. The dressing-room knows that. “What Shreyas has done wrong?” Ravichandran Ashwin said on his YouTube channel, commenting on the player’s Asia Cup snub. “He did brilliantly well for KKR, made them win. He was sent into the auction. He then took Punjab to the finals for the first time since 2014. He overcame the short ball problem. He was hitting the likes of Kagiso Rabada and Jasprit Bumrah with ease in the IPL. I am just extremely sad for him and Yashasvi Jaiswal. It is extremely unfair.”
As skipper Suryakumar Yadav said, India’s T20 World Cup “journey starts from the Asia Cup”. This, however, is not the final World Cup squad. After the Asian tournament, India will play another 15 T20Is, against tougher opponents, in the lead-up to the ICC event. The team will need Shreyas’s quality in the showpiece.
Without the properties of a fly on the wall, it would be preposterous to propound a conspiracy theory. If at all there’s an issue between Agarkar and Shreyas, that needs to be sorted out at the earliest. Both of them are by-products of the tough Mumbai school of cricket. But Agarkar is Shreyas’s senior and also the chief selector. The initiative, if required, should come from the player.
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