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India speedster Mohammed Siraj was excluded from the Rohit Sharma-led ICC Champions Trophy 2025 squad. The pacer's exclusion from the squad was a surprise because he was ranked in the top five of the ICC ODI rankings when snubbed from the Champions Trophy squad.
Team India initially picked Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah as their two pacers for the mega event but the Men in Blue updated their squad as Bumrah was ruled out of the tournament with a back injury, India picked Harshit Rana as his replacement, not Siraj.
Siraj is one of the Indian cricketers who features in all formats of the game but he missed a lot of cricket since the fifth Test match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25. He was not part of India's white-ball squad against England just before the Champions Trophy 2025.
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Despite losing his spot on the national side, He doesn't want to put himself under pressure by thinking about selection.
“Look, selection is not in my hands. I have only a cricket ball in my hands and I wanted to do as much as I can with that. I don’t want to put pressure on myself thinking about selection, as I want to focus on my performance," Siraj told PTI.
Team India are scheduled to travel to England for the five-test match series. When asked about that Siraj said that tournaments like the Asia Cup and England tour remain at the back of his mind, but he tries to focus on the present.
“Yeah aș a player, it remains in the back of your mind that there is a tour of England and the Asia Cup but I don’t really seriously think about it, as my focus is on IPL and doing well for Gujarat Titans and helping them win another IPL title,” he said.
Siraj who was part of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 has been picked by Gujarat Titans (GT) as a like-for-like replacement for Mohammed Shami. Shubman Gill-led GT will start their IPL 2025 campaign against Punjab Kings (PBKS) on March 25.
