Sandeep Sharma Bluntly Shares His Thoughts About Shreyas Iyer Getting Ignored in T20I Despite IPL Heroics

With the Asia Cup all set to commence in a week’s time and the T20I World Cup coming up in less than 12 months, there is a lot of chatter about the 15 members India would pick for their T20I team. The Indian T20I team under Gautam Gambhir has become a strong force to reckon with as they have won series at home and overseas taking down sides like South Africa and England with relative ease.

This success has come with a certain amount of stability with most spots in the team locked down. However, with the IPL bringing new performances every year, there are names that float around for a chance in the T20I team.

One such experienced name and a consistent performer has been Shreyas Iyer. Despite taking two different franchises to the final in two years as a captain in the IPL and winning a title as well, Iyer finds himself a little away from consideration for a spot in the Indian team.

Many players and fans have expressed their opinion on Iyer’s exclusion from the team and feel it is unfair on the batter. In the recent IPL Iyer scored more than 600 runs further pushing for a spot in the side. Experienced IPL bowler Sandeep Sharma although has different views on the entire situation and expressed them bluntly in an interview with CricTracker.

Sharma very meticulously broke down the difference between Indian cricket and IPL cricket. He called IPL a domestic tournament and said captaining a franchise there isn’t the criteria for being captain of team India. He cited examples of Suryakumar Yadav and Rohit Sharma who haven’t captained in franchise cricket for a while now but still are captains of the national team.

See, this debate that he as a captain took his team to the finals is senseless. Surya (Suryakumar Yadav) is not doing the captaincy of any franchise. So that is not the criteria to be the captain of the Indian side. And for the last three years, Rohit was not doing the captaincy of any franchise. But still, he was the captain of the T20 Indian team and the one day side is still the same captain. And he was the captain of all three formats of Tests. So that is not the criteria that you do in IPL. IPL is totally different. It is a domestic league.

Sandeep Sharma via CricTracker

Sharma further elaborated that an IPL captain is picked on the basis of the squad construction that takes place in the IPL. An IPL captain has to captain a mix of domestic and international players, whereas an Indian captain has to take care of 15 high profile India players making it a different ball game altogether.

Sandeep Sharma explains the complexity of a Selectors role

In the same interview with CricTracker, Sharma was asked about the exclusion of Prasidh Krishna from the T20I side despite having a great outing in the IPL this time around. Krishna who finished as the leading wicket taker in the recently concluded IPL with 25 wickets failed to make it to the Indian team for the multinational event.

Sharma explained the complexities of being a selector as he gave a balanced answer. He dissected the thought process a selector must have while choosing the team as he is always bound to make someone disappointed. In a squad of just 15 members it is difficult to choose players from such a big talent pool.

As a selector or if you’re doing a job, so you can’t make everyone happy. If you put Prasidh, then a lot of people come and say, put someone else. So I feel as a selector or when you’re doing that job, you shouldn’t be bothered about so many people. You should be bothered about yourself. You should know that, yes, according to me, I have made the best team. After that, you should go and sleep peacefully. As I said, you can’t make everyone happy.

Sandeep Sharma added