Former Indian cricketer Suresh Raina on Friday (August 21) said India would have won the 2019 World Cup if Ambati Rayudu was part of their campaign in England last year.
Rayudu was controversially dropped from India's 2019 World Cup squad despite being deemed to be India's first choice for the No. 4 spot before the prestigious ODI tournament in England.
Unfortunately, Rayudu wasn’t picked and India went into the World Cup 2019 without a specialist batsman for the crucial No.4 spot with Vijay Shankar and KL Rahul picked for the spot, though later, Shikhar Dhawan's injury prompted the Karnataka batsman to be moved back to the opening position. Inexperienced Rishabh Pant was later tried at the crucial spot in the batting line-up.
Raina, who recently announced his international retirement, said his Chennai Super Kings teammate deserved to play in the 2019 World Cup and bat at No.4 for the Indian cricket team since he was working very hard and even performed really well for almost one and half years at this position.
In conversation with Harsha Bhogle on Cricbuzz, Raina said: “I wanted Rayudu to be India's number four because he was working very hard, playing [for] almost one and a half years. He performed really well and he wasn't there. I didn't enjoy the tour in 2018 because of the circumstances where Rayudu failed his fitness test. It didn't feel good that I was picked as he failed.”
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The swashbuckling left-hander concluded, “He was good at number four. If he was part of the squad for the World Cup, we would have won the tournament. Rayudu was the best choice and as it's the way he plays the game in the CSK. And he was batting really well in the camp in Chennai.”
(With Cricbuzz Inputs)
