ICC Champions Trophy 2017: 5 prominent players that were benched the whole tournament
Another exciting ICC Champions Trophy is done and dusted after the highly mercurial Pakistan toppled India in a high voltage final at The Oval. A tournament of unexpected results started with Pakistan knocking England out in the semis and Bangladesh trumping New Zealand to reach the semi-finals. India, widely expected to emerge victorious were then stunned in the final by a young opener (Fakhar Zaman) and an ominous spell from Mohammad Amir.
In hindsight, most teams will a go back to the drawing board and analyse where they went wrong in the short event. South Africa and Australia crashed out in the group stages as did a good looking New Zealand side while Sri Lanka stunned India before exiting gracefully after a loss to Pakistan.
While teams and players head back to their home countries with mixed emotions some of them would be wondering why they never got to represent their nation in a single game despite being in the squad. Here are the five most prominent of them.
#5 Ajinkya Rahane
Despite being one of the most reliable Test batsmen in the Indian side, Ajinkya Rahane was benched right through the Champions Trophy. With Rohit Sharma returning to the top of the order and Shikhar Dhawan finding form in the IPL, Rahane could not be considered for a spot at the top.
The middle-order comprising of Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni, Kedar Jadhav and Hardik Pandya was also jam packed to fit in someone like Rahane, who is often criticised for his strike rate and failed to make any mark in the warm-up games. The Mumbaikar also had a poor IPL despite his franchise, the Pune Supergiant, emerging runners-up. Rahane has played just one ODI for India in 2017 – scoring as many runs.