“Big surprise” - Ex-Indian captain expresses frustration over Shreyas Iyer’s exclusion

Former Indian captain Mohammad Azharuddin has expressed his frustration over the exclusion of the middle-order batter Shreyas Iyer from the Asia Cup 2025 squad, which will be led by Suryakumar Yadav in the United Arab Emirates.

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While the former spinner Ravi Ashwin was the first among the ex-cricketers to slam the selection committee for not selecting Iyer in the squad, now, Azharuddin has also joined the queue.

"Shreyas Iyer left out of the squad. Big surprise,” Azharuddin wrote on his X handle.

https://x.com/azharflicks/status/1957809549857239459

After announcing the squad, chief selector Ajit Agarkar had commented that it is no one’s fault as they have a chance to pick only 15 players, but hopefully, Iyer would get his chance in the near future. 

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"With regards to Shreyas, you'll have to tell who he can replace. It is again, no fault of his, nor is it ours. It's just that at the moment, you can just pick 15. He's got to wait for his chance,” Agarkar told the media.

Notably, Iyer ended the IPL 2025 season as the sixth-leading run-scorer, accumulating 604 runs from 17 innings at an average of 50.33 and a strike rate of 175.07 with six half-centuries. His best score of 97* came against the Gujarat Titans.

Moreover, he was India’s leading run-scorer and the second-leading run-scorer overall in the recently concluded ICC Champions Trophy 2025 campaign, amassing 243 runs in five innings at an average of 48.6 with two half-centuries.

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India’s squad for Asia Cup: 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.

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

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