Former Indian Batter Slams Gautam Gambhir, Ajit Agarkar For Leaving Out This Indian All-Rounder From England Series

The Indian squad for the England white-ball series was announced last Sunday, January 12. The return of Mohammed Shami grabbed the headlines while there were some other notable inclusions as well.

Names like Dhruv Jurel, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravi Bishnoi and Varun Chakravarty were considered for selection. Reddy and Harshit are drafted into the squad right away after their return from Australia. Washington Sundar was the chief off spinner while Axar Patel was named as the vice-captain for the series.

Meanwhile, Aakash Chopra in a recent YouTube video on his channel, spoke about a few prominent exclusions from the squad. One of the names he took was that of Shivam Dube. Dube was part of the Indian T20 World Cup squad last year. He then travelled to Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka for a T20I series. However, he was axed from the side that played against Bangladesh and South Africa.

"What happened to Shivam Dube? I wanted to talk about Ruturaj (Gaikwad) as well but he is not able to make his place. Rajat Patidar is also there. Obviously, there is a lot of batting. However, now I am going to focus a little bit on Shivam Dube. He was a member of the T20 World Cup-winning team," Chopra said on his YouTube channel.

Shivam Dube's Absence From England Squad Irks Aakash Chopra

He further added that Dube should have got a longer run in the T20I side since he was a part of the T20 World Cup-winning squad.

"When you win, everyone should get the credit. He even played decently in the final. Before that, there were definitely some questions that he wasn't fielding or batting well. However, then he played well and became the T20 World Cup champion. After that, he remained injured a little, didn't get too many opportunities either, and is now out of the team. No one is talking about him as well. Riyan Parag is not being talked about because he is injured but no one is asking where Dube went. He suddenly disappeared from the horizon," Chopra questioned further.

Chopra blamed the Agarkar-Gambhir duo for not giving Dube a longer run in the shortest format. After India's loss in the Australia tour, Gautam Gambhir's tenure is under threat and BCCI has given him an ultimatum by all means.

Talking about the India-England series, both teams play a five-match T20I series starting from January 22 in Kolkata. The teams then play a three-match ODI series.

India T20I Side For England Series

Suryakumar Yadav (C), Sanju Samson (wk), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel (vc), Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Shami, Varun Chakravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Washington Sundar, Dhruv Jurel (wk)