Team India's squad for the upcoming white-ball series against New Zealand was announced by the BCCI on Friday. To everyone's delight, young batter Prithvi Shaw, who shattered many records with his knock of 379 in the ongoing edition of the Ranji Trophy, has been recalled to the national side for the T20Is. Apart from this, the management also announced the squad for the first Two Tests against Australia, where Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan earned call-ups in the longest format. However, Suryakumar's inclusion did not go well with many fans and experts as they expressed their disappointment with the management for picking up the 32-year-old batter while overlooking Sarfaraz Khan.
In the 2021-22 Ranji Trophy, Sarfaraz scored 982 runs at an average of 122.75 with four centuries and two half-centuries. His highest score was 275. Meanwhile, the ongoing edition has seen him amass 431 runs at an average of 107.75 and a strike-rate of 70.54 with two centuries, one half-century. Former India batter Aakash Chopra also stated that the selectors should have "rewarded" Sarfaraz for his blistering runs in the domestic cricket by naming him in the team.
"Sarfaraz's name is still not there. He feels he got cheated because his name should probably have come. Bumrah is still not there. That's another news but I am more concerned that Sarfaraz is not there. When you picked Surya, it means a slot had opened up. In my opinion, Sarfaraz should have gotten that chance because Sarfaraz's first-class average is 80. Apart from him, only Don Bradman has an average of 80 or more in the number of matches he has played," said Aakash on his YouTube channel.
"So he has done everything in his powers to be in the Indian team. I am a little disappointed, that if you had a chance to select even one guy, because both Surya and Sarfaraz don't come in the XI, Sarfaraz had the right in my opinion. If someone's domestic season is going so good, you should have rewarded him," he added.
India squad for first two Tests vs Australia
Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), R. Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Suryakumar Yadav.