"Surprised at the omission of Shreyas Iyer and Md. Shami" - Azharuddin unhappy with India's T20 World Cup squad

Mohammad Azharuddin has expressed his displeasure at the omission of Shreyas Iyer and Mohammed Shami from India's 15-member T20 World Cup squad, which was picked by the BCCI selectors on Monday, September 12.

Both Iyer and Shami are part of the four-member standby list and will only come into the reckoning if there is an injury to some players during the main tournament.

Azharuddin, who led India in three World Cups, revealed that he was surprised to see Iyer and Shami not being part of the original squad. Taking to Twitter, the former Indian captain wrote:

“Surprised at the omission of Shreyas Iyer and Md Shami from the main squad."

Surprised at the omission of Shreyas Iyer and Md. Shami from the main squad. twitter.com/bcci/status/15…

India's squad for the T20 World Cup

Squad: Rohit Sharma (C), KL Rahul (VC), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant (WK), Dinesh Karthik (WK), Hardik Pandya, Ravichandran Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, B Kumar, Harshal Patel, and Arshdeep Singh.

Standby players: Mohammed Shami, Shreyas Iyer, Deepak Chahar, Ravi Bishnoi.

Shreyas Iyer has fallen off the radar in recent times

Iyer’s career has taken a significant jolt ever since his struggles against short-pitch deliveries came out in the open. Both international and franchise captains have targeted him with bouncers in the recent past and Iyer has faced difficulties.

In the final rescheduled Test against England a couple of months back, former KKR coach Brendon McCullum was seen signaling from the dressing room to target Iyer’s rib cage. McCullum spent enough time with Iyer in the KKR dressing room and his advice worked wonders as the batter was dismissed just a few deliveries later.

Mohammed Shami's last T20I outing was in the 2021 World Cup

In 2014 and 2021, India selected Shami in their World T20 squads before him playing any T20Is leading upto the event. In fact, Shami made his T20I debut in the 2014 World T20 only. Shami hasn't played any T20I since the last WT20 either. Hope the same mistake isn't committed.

Veteran pacer Shami was sidelined from the Indian T20 side after a poor run at the 2021 World Cup in the UAE. He hasn’t played a single game for India in this format but has been kept in the reserve list.

The right-arm pacer, however, was named in the squads for the upcoming T20I series against Australia and South Africa. He will hope to have good outings in these six games to keep himself in the best shape possible if an opportunity comes his way.

Shami has featured only in 17 T20Is so far, picking up 18 wickets at an economy rate of 9.54.