Raina retired from international cricket at the age of 33 in August 2020.
Former Indian middle-order batter Suresh Raina recently shed light on the final phase of his international career, expressing deep frustration over his exclusion from the national side during the leadership era of captain Virat Kohli and head coach Anil Kumble.
Raina stated that he repeatedly sought clarity regarding his omission. He confronted both Kohli and Kumble with direct questions about why he was dropped, but neither gave him a clear or concrete response.
The southpaw recalled that he had initially failed the newly introduced Yo-Yo fitness test. However, even after working hard to clear the fitness benchmark later, the team management chose not to recall him.
"No, every captain has his own team, right... as you can see. When someone else became captain, he felt this player is better, that player is better. Because as you can see, everything kept changing after that. People like us, when I and Yuvi pa [Yuvraj Singh] were there, we failed the Yo-Yo test too. After that, we cleared it as well, played a lot of domestic cricket, scored a lot of runs too," Raina told former India batter Aakash Chopra during a candid chat.
"I asked questions, I didn't get answers. So I asked questions, talked to people... captain and coaches."
Raina's final limited-overs assignments for India came during the 2018 tour of England. He was subsequently left out of the planning for the 2019 ODI World Cup, closing the chapter on an illustrious international career that included winning the 2011 World Cup and the 2013 Champions Trophy.
"Then came the 2019 World Cup in England, where preference was given to a different batter. A different wicketkeeper went there. But every captain has a different role, all those things were different. At that time, I felt I could have done better, maybe Yuvi pa could have done better... because someone experienced was needed there since both of us had played together for so long. But alright, there's no point talking about all that now," he stated.
This lack of transparency and a path back to the squad eventually led Raina to retire from international cricket on August 15, 2020, at the age of 33.
Raina reckons knee injury might have been cited as a reason for his snub from the team. "But it does make a lot of difference, definitely. We became the fittest team at that time, whatever we were told, we passed it too, so why weren't we selected after that? Or were you just looking for a reason? Even back then we used to do a different Yo-Yo when Gary [Kirsten] used to conduct it... we passed that, only then were we in the team," he remarked.