Left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha played his last Test for India at the age of 27.
Ojha, also dealing with question marks over the legality of his action, had his ouster triggered by the rise and rise of Ravindra Jadeja, who replaced him at the time and go on to cement his place as the team's second-best Test spinner behind Ravichandran Ashwin.
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In order to get himself back in the reckoning, Ojha made a move from Hyderabad to Bengal at the domestic level in 2015-16. But the dream of playing again for India never turned into reality.
"There are certain things that can't be understood," Ojha told Sports Tak, having announced his retirement earlier this year. "I have thought about it (abrupt end to Test career) a lot of times. When Hyderabad got relegated, I moved to Bengal to play cricket because I wanted to play in the elite group."
"When you want to make a comeback, you have to play elite cricket. I had no choice. I had to leave my home state and play for Bengal. I am very thankful to Dada (Sourav Ganguly) for encouraging me at that time. I did well for Bengal and my performances were good but I was not able to understand what went wrong."
With Jadeja and Ashwin forming a threatening spin duo in home conditions, Indian cricket soon moved on from Ojha and looked to create back-ups, who offered different variety to the attack.
"After the Test, I played a tournament for India A against Australia in Chennai. I got wickets there as well but I was told that a leg-spinner was needed at that time. So Mishy bhai (Amit Mishra) went to Sri Lanka," Ojha recalled.
"I know VVS Laxman and Venkatapathy Raju very well. They kept telling me to focus on my work and the chances will come automatically. I thought I will keep performing and the chances will come my way. I did not interact with people about this."
"Maybe, when Jaddu [Jadeja] came into the team, he gave the team a different dimension," he added. "He bowled very well, he was a good batsman as well, he contributes with the bat even now. Fielding he is one of the best in the world. Maybe, because of the other dimension, I might have fallen back a bit."
(Inputs from India Today)