Former India captain Kris Srikkanth jokingly said that Ruturaj Gaikwad may have to start keeping wickets in order to make his way into the ODI squad. This comes after Gaikwad was shockingly snubbed from the Men in Blue's squad for the upcoming one-day assignment against New Zealand that will commence from January 11.
Gaikwad wasn't given a place in the team despite registering his maiden ODI hundred during India's second game of the three-match series against South Africa in December. In his place, Shreyas Iyer was called back into the team after he recovered from the injury to his rib cage and Rishabh Pant was also included even though he didn't feature at all in the series against South Africa.
Srikkanth wanted Reddy to be dropped
Srikkanth believes that Gaikwad deserved a spot over Nitish Kumar Reddy and criticised the selectors for making the surprising call.
"Maybe Ruturaj Gaikwad can say I've played with Dhoni so I can also keep. That's the only way he might get selected in the team. Shreyas Iyer is a certainty, so he should have been included. But Ruturaj Gaikwad should have been in the 15. Instead of having Nitish Kumar Reddy, keep him in the 15," Srikkanth said on his YouTube channel.
Srikkanth further said that Gaikwad will now have to start from the beginning and will have to score a ton of runs at the domestic circuit in order to put the selectors on notice once again and making it back into the team.
"It's saying even if you score a century, there is no chance. Now Gaikwad has to start from scratch and score a mountain of runs because they'll forget this century against South Africa. They've dropped him also so he has to score big again in domestic cricket," he added.
India make 3 changes to the squad
Meanwhile, India made a total of three changes to their squad for New Zealand ODIs. Alongside Gaikwad, both Dhruv Jurel and Tilak Varma were also dropped. Jurel hadn't got a shot at the playing XI in any of the three ODIs against South Africa while Tilak had been chosen in the playing XI for the final match, but didn't get an opportunity to bat.
India's squad for New Zealand ODIs: Shubman Gill (C), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul (WK), Shreyas Iyer (VC)*, Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd Siraj, Harshit Rana, Prasidh Krishna, Kuldeep Yadav, Rishabh Pant (WK), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Arshdeep Singh, Yashasvi Jaiswal