India's squad for Asia Cup 2025 was announced by the selection committee chief Ajit Agarkar through a press-conference on Tuesday. Surprisingly, Shreyas Iyer's name was not included in the 15-member squad and it wasn't present in the 5-member reserve list either.
Shreyas had given stunning performances with the bat in his previous T20 assignment which was IPL 2025. He was the captain of the Punjab Kings (PBKS) and carried the side all the way to the final where they eventually ended up losing to the Royal Challengers Bengaluru. The batter finished the season as the side's top-scorer with 604 runs from 17 matches and recorded six 50+ scores. This is the reason why Shreyas' snub from India's Asia Cup squad was shocking for many.
Now, former New Zealand cricketer Ross Taylor has shared his take on Shreyas' exclusion from India's squad. However, rather than criticising the selectors for not picking the 30-year-old, he instead was left impressed with how much depth the Men in Blue have in their squad.
“I haven’t seen the side yet so can’t say. (But) when you can leave that type of quality out, you’ve got to be pretty comfortable with the depth of your squad," Taylor told PTI Videos on the sidelines of a CLT10 League event.
Shreyas hasn't played T20Is for over a year now
Shreyas not making the cut into India's squad for the upcoming continental tournament means that the batter will continue his wait of making a return to the Men in Blue's T20I set-up. Notably, he hasn't featured for the national team in the shortest format since December, 2023 and there is no guarantee as to when the selectors will consider him again for a T20I assignment in the future.
On the other hand, Suryakumar Yadav will be leading the Indian team in Asia Cup which is set to begin from September 9. The selectors decided to hand the duty of vice-captaincy to Shubman Gill, who recently led the side in the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy against England. This was a bold move as the 25-year-old hasn't featured for the national team in the shortest format since July, 2024. It remains to be seen how far will this side manage to go in the tournament, which they have won a record eight times so far in their history.
India's squad for Asia Cup 2025: Suryakumar Yadav (capt), Shubman Gill (vc), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakravarthy, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Sanju Samson, Harshit Rana, Rinku Singh.