Five Indian cricketers who were unlucky not to have played more for their country
Rejection is probably one of the hardest things to digest for any professional across the world. It nags at your mind, it nibbles at your self-confidence and makes you question yourself at every step.
Sport is just as ruthless as any other profession, if not more. If you are not a part of an elite group of athletes, you just cannot sustain at the highest level. Sometimes, even the most talented and accomplished individuals miss out on the glory due to unexplainable circumstances.
Indian cricket has seen many such players, who in hindsight, could never make it count at the international level. Their place in the Indian Cricket Team were never cemented, as they kept brooding on the fringes of the national side. Some of them were sidelined due to injury. Others, just due to rotten luck.
Let us take a look at five Indian cricketers who were unlucky not to have played more for their country:
#5 Wasim Jaffer
Probably one of the biggest enigmas in the history of Indian cricket is Wasim Jaffer's inability to make it big at the international stage despite scoring runs galore at the domestic level. The country's fifth highest run-scorer in First Class cricket and an absolute heavyweight of the Ranji Trophy, the right-handed batsman was once considered to be the next-best-thing for the national team.
However, Jaffer could never really cement his place in the Indian side and remained at the fringes of their core line-up. The Mumbai batsman, who has over 18,000 runs in FC cricket, made his debut for India against South Africa in 2000. He played the last Test match of his international career in 2008.
During the eight-year period between, he could represent India just 31 times in the longest format of the game and played only two ODI matches. Jaffer has five centuries and eleven half-centuries at the international level.
While he could not bring his best to the table in the limited number of opportunities that he got, you might argue that he did not get full-fledged support from the selection committee. Had he enjoyed a longer rope in his sojourn with the national team, the 40-year-old might've had a bigger role to play in the history of Indian cricket.