Yashasvi Jaiswal in action during third India vs South Africa ODI in Vizag. (PHOTO: AP)
Yashasvi Jaiswal, who was the backup opener two years back when India won the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024, finds himself out of reckoning for the team’s title defence. Former India chief selector Dilip Vengsarkar said it is unfortunate that the talented left-hander keeps missing out ‘for no fault of his’.
“It is unfortunate that Yashasvi is being left out time and again for no fault of his. He has been in tremendous form across all formats of the game and I don’t know what else he has to do to get into the team,” former India captain Vengsarkar told PTI. “Nobody should leave a match-winner out of the team.”
When asked what he would have told Jaiswal had he now been the chairman of selectors, Vengsarkar said: “I wouldn’t have told him anything because I wouldn’t have dropped him in the first place.”
The current chief of selectors Ajit Agarkar did bring up Jaiswal’s name when he addressed the media but in a different context, because a majority of attention was on Shubman Gill getting dropped despite being the incumbent vice captain in the format. “Nobody is talking about Jaiswal suddenly. He is another guy who was in the last World Cup, he is missing out as well. At the end of the day you are looking at the best combination to give you the best chance, and this is what we have settled with. Whether it is decided today, yesterday, or 1 week earlier, it does not really matter,” Agarkar had said at the press conference in Mumbai on Saturday.
While Vengsarkar agreed with the call of leaving Gill out, he wanted the Mumbai opening batter to be in the mix. “They are all excellent players but I am with selection committee when they judge players on basis of current form and fitness. Current form does play an important role in context of selection. And if you ask whom I would have picked instead of Gill, my choice would have been Jaiswal. He has proven time and again what a class performer he is and has always given the team kind of starts required these days,” said the former India skipper and a veteran of 116 Tests and 129 ODIs.
While Jaiswal did play in the South Africa ODI series because Gill was injured, he is currently seen as a Test specialist, the only international format where he gets picked consistently as of now. Soon to be 24, he is still young enough to nail his place across different formats but as of now, the selectors haven’t turned to him regularly in white-ball cricket, despite his potential to bat explosively, as seen in the IPL and for Mumbai too. This time around, the team management decided to bring in Ishan Kishan out of wilderness for the backup opener’s slot that Jaiswal had in the last World Cup, reasoning that they wanted a keeper to bat in the top order.
“You are bound to lose confidence if you are made to feel that you are not required in one format. I mean it will affect his confidence and this game is all about confidence. And confidence comes when you have performances backed by runs,” Vengsarkar added.