Manjrekar called Shreyas Iyer’s snub shocking after the PBKS captain had a blockbuster IPL 2025 season.
BCCI selection committee chief Ajit Agarkar and skipper Suryakumar Yadav on Tuesday (August 19) announced India's 15-member T20I squad for the Asia Cup 2025 at a press conference in Mumbai.
The biggest talking point from the presser was the inclusion of Test skipper Shubman Gill, who recently led India to 2-2 series draw on the tour of England.
Despite the top-order firing through Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, Tilak Varma and skipper Suryakumar Yadav himself, Gill was not only added to the squad but also named vice-captain.
Moreover, many fans and experts were left baffled by the exclusions of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shreyas Iyer despite both batters being the top performers in IPL over the last few seasons.
Former India cricketer-turned-commentators Sanjay Manjrekar too was unhappy with the squad and slammed the selectors for their tendency to pick players for one format based on performances in another version.
While Manjrekar refused to specify names, he felt India’s Asia Cup T20I team defies cricketing logic.
“It’s something I’ve seen over the years, not recently: this tendency of selectors to pick a player based on performances in one format, where that person excelled, and then picking him for another format. When I see a player getting rewarded for his Test match performances by being placed in the T20 side, I just find that devoid of cricketing logic. It just doesn’t make any sense,” said Manjrekar in a video shared on his Instagram account.
Manjrekar called Iyer’s snub shocking after the Punjab Kings captain had a blockbuster IPL 2025 season after shining in India’s Champions Trophy triumph earlier this year.
“Shreyas Iyer not making this T20 squad of India for the Asia Cup is just shocking. This is a guy who was left out of the Indian team for the right reason because they felt he wasn’t committing himself as much to domestic cricket. But it had the desired effect on Shreyas Iyer: when he came back again in the England at-home ODI series, the way he batted, you could see that he was just batting like he had never batted before,” remarked Manjrekar.
Shreyas Iyer amassed over 600 runs while leading PBKS to their first final in 11 years. His 175-plus strike rate was also the best among all players who had scored as many runs as him in the season.
“He didn’t put a foot wrong in that comeback series and then carried that form into IPL cricket. I don’t think any batter has had that kind of form throughout the IPL season, with the average over 50, strike rate over 170, and being the game-changer in the side with the bat. And he gets rewarded with non-selection,” Manjrekar added.
According to Manjrekar, Iyer’s omission should have only come at the expense of someone who had performed better than him in T20 cricket and not the Test format, a possible jibe at Gill’s return to the squad.
“So, when you do that to a player who has put in one of the best performances ever in the last few months in a format for which the Indian team is being selected, and you leave him out of that format, that’s for a guy who has excelled in a completely different format: Test cricket. Pick a guy who’s done well in T20 cricket, and not just because somebody has done so well in Test cricket gets rewarded with a T20 place, especially at the cost of somebody like Shreyas Iyer.”
The contentious point was that Shreyas Iyer wasn’t even considered in the reserves list. Prasidh Krishna, Washington Sundar, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Yashasvi Jaiswal were the five standbys named for the tournament.