Out-of-favour batsman Suresh Raina on Tuesday (May 12) expressed his desire to don the Indian jersey again.
Raina, who underwent knee surgery in Amsterdam last year, last played for India in July 2018. The southpaw was targetting IPL 2020 to reclaim his place in the national side but the cash-rich event got postponed indefinitely due to COVID-19.
Nonetheless, Raina remains hopeful of making comeback as he believes there is still a lot of cricket left in him.
"I was correcting myself, I regained fitness after a knee injury and in the process I also passed the yo-yo" test. I put in a lot of hard work to get into the team, big players always supported me during my bad phase and I still have cricket left in me," Raina told his fellow Indian cricketer Rohit Sharma during an Instagram Live session.
Rohit admitted that there have always been conversations within the team regarding the inclusion of Raina in the squad owing to his all-round abilities.
"We always talk about bringing you (Raina) back into the team but team selection is not in our hands and we should always keep doing the hard work," the India opener said.
Earlier this month, Raina, during a YouTube show, accused the selectors of not clarifying why he was dropped from the Indian side.
"I think selectors should have taken more responsibility towards the senior players. Tell me, if I have any deficiency then I will work hard. When the cause is not known, how he will improve," he had said.
As far as Suresh Raina’s international credentials are concerned – he has represented the country in 18 Tests, 226 ODIs and 78 T20Is. In his prime, the left-hander was a mighty fine middle-order batsman in white-ball cricket. 5615 ODI runs at an average of 35.31 and 1605 T20I runs at a strike-rate of 134.87 are testimonies of Raina’s brilliance in the limited-overs format.
