Former Indian batter Sadhagopan Ramesh expressed his disappointment with the selection committee headed by former teammate Ajit Agarkar. The 51-year-old took to his Instagram handle and spoke about being included in the Indian T20I set-up despite not having played any domestic cricket.
In the past, players like and have also been asked to play the domestic matches to prove their fitness. Rana had injured himself while playing the T20 World Cup practice match for India against South Africa. The right-arm seamer from Delhi eventually was ruled out of the tournament and also didn’t play the IPL 2026 season.
Ramesh, speaking in Tamil, was heard saying, “Morning people, can I ask you guys a question? Be it Rohit or Virat, it was said that only if you play domestic cricket will you be considered for selection. Even Hardik Pandya was asked to prove his fitness, and he went ahead and played the Vijay Hazare trophy this season.”
The former opening batter then named dropped and said, “Even in the case of Shami, it was said that he cannot bowl long spells. It was said that the player will be considered if he can prove his fitness by bowling such spells, even the newly appointed skipper Shreyas Iyer had to prove himself before the New Zealand series earlier this year.”
Harshit Rana’s selection draws more questions
India’s former batter then said, “We have seen many such cases where the players were asked to prove themselves by playing in the domestic circuit. That was the main criterion for selection, and rightly so. Then the question that comes to everyone’s mind is how Harshit Rana was selected. He hasn’t played any domestic matches that I know of since his knee surgery. This question was rankling me a lot, so I decided to put up this video.”
Former India skipper Kohli has already been ruled out of the ODI series against Afghanistan due to a knee injury. Yashasvi Jaiswal has replaced the 37-year-old in the squad, while Rohit and Hardik are likely to join soon. Rana last played an international game for India in the Vizag T20I against New Zealand, where he went wicketless and scored nine runs.