Asia Cup 2025: Chief selector reveals the reasons behind excluding Shreyas Iyer and Yashasvi Jaiswal

Indian chief selector Ajit Agarkar has opened up on Punjab Kings captain Shreyas Iyer’s exclusion from the Indian T20I squad for the forthcoming Asia Cup, which is scheduled to start on Tuesday, September 9, in the United Arab Emirates.

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Speaking with the reporters at the press conference in Mumbai, Agarkar stated that Iyer couldn’t find a spot in the squad as they can pick only members at the moment, and the middle-order batter has to wait for his chance.

"With regards to Shreyas, not his fault, nor is it ours. It's just that you can pick 15 and at the moment you'll have to wait for his chance," Agarkar told the media on Tuesday.

It’s important to note that Iyer ended the IPL 2025 season as the sixth-leading run-scorer, amassing 604 runs from 17 games at an average of 50.33 and a strike rate of 175.07 with six half-centuries. His best score of an unbeaten 97 came against the Gujarat Titans.

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One more stunning exclusion from the squad was of Yashasvi Jaiswal, who also had a decent IPL 2025 season, but couldn’t make it to the final 15 as Shubman Gill made a comeback as a vice-captain.

"With regards to Yashasvi, I mean, it's just unfortunate again. You know, there's Abhishek Sharma, what he's done over the last few months or a year or so that he's been with the team, plus that he can bowl a little bit, gives us an option if required by the captain. One of these guys was always going to miss out. It's just unfortunate that Yashasvi might have to wait for his chance," Agarkar added.

With three spinners, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy, and Axar Patel already part of the squad, all-rounder Washington Sundar has been named in the standby players. Agarkar stated that Sundar will always be in the scheme of things and added that this isn’t the final squad for the T20 World Cup.

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"He'll always be in the scheme of things. This is not the final squad for the World Cup. At the moment, we have three spinners in the squad. Two mystery spinners in Varun, Kuldeep and Axhar. They've been around for a while. Whether we need four spinners, he might always come into the equation, if and when that happens," he observed.

Team India squad for Asia Cup 2025: Surya Kumar Yadav (c), Shubman Gill (vc), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Sanju Samson (wk), Harshit Rana, Rinku Singh.

Reserve players: Prasidh Krishna, Washington Sundar, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Yashasvi Jaiswal.

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