3 players who were unlucky to miss out on India's squad for the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy ft. B Sai Sudharsan
The BCCI recently announced India's squad for the upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which will commence on November 22 in Perth. Rohit Sharma and Co. will need to be the best versions of themselves if they are to make the final of the World Test Championship for the third successive cycle.
India suffered a shock series loss to New Zealand, and there's no doubt that the Test team is on the verge of a rough transition. While the team management might be keen on making those changes after the Australia tour, it would've been wise for the newer batch of players to rub shoulders with the incumbent superstars.
India’s squad for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy: Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (wk), R Ashwin, R Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar
On that note, here are three Indian players who were unlucky to miss out on India's squad for the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
#3 B Sai Sudharsan
Since August 2024, Sai Sudharsan has been in excellent touch in red-ball cricket. His first-class average is in the mid-40s, which isn't a great sign, but it seems like he has found a way to overcome his prior issues of not being able to convert starts into big scores.
Sudharsan smacked a hundred for Surrey towards the end of August and followed it up with a sparkling 111 for India C in September's Duleep Trophy. He also has scores of 82 and 213 in his two Ranji Trophy outings so far for Tamil Nadu, with the latter being his sixth first-class ton.
With India needing backups who can bat at various positions in the top order, Sai Sudharsan, who has made his international debut in the other two formats, would've been a promising pick. The 23-year-old, who is part of the A tour of Australia, will certainly be an integral part of the team's plans going forward.
#2 Baba Indrajith
Sai Sudharsan's Tamil Nadu teammate Baba Indrajith has been banging down the selectors' door for quite a while now. An assured player of both pace and spin, the middle-order batter averages well over 50 in first-class cricket.
With KL Rahul failing to deliver and Sarfaraz Khan perhaps not suited to Australian conditions, India could've used a backup or two in the middle order. Dhruv Jurel is an option, but having a player of Indrajith's class and experience would've helped the visitors immensely in Australia.
Like Sudharsan, Indrajith is part of the India A squad. It's worth arguing that he already deserves to be part of the senior side, given how relentlessly consistent he has been in domestic cricket.
#1 Axar Patel
With India looking to shore up their pace department and Washington Sundar impressing in the Pune Test against New Zealand, Axar Patel missed out on the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. He will instead feature in the upcoming four-T20I series against South Africa.
While it's understandable why India chose to go down that route, Axar can consider himself unfortunate to have missed out on the squad. The all-rounder hasn't done much wrong in Test cricket and has come up with a number of match-saving knocks lower down the order. While his bowling has been a slight letdown, there's a case to be made that he could use the extra bounce Down Under.