Former Australian wicketkeeper Brad Haddin has responded to Sunil Gavaskar's comments after the Indian legend slammed the foreign players for criticizing India’s Asia Cup 20025 squad.

The Indian squad for the continental showpiece was announced on August 19 by chief selector Ajit Agarkar, and while the selection was praised by many of the former cricketers and experts, debate has been raging since then on the exclusion of two talented batters -- Shreyas Iyer and Yashasvi Jaiswal.

While Jaiswal was named in the reserve players list, Shreyas was completely ignored despite leading KKR to the IPL title win last year and guiding PBKS to the final of the 2025 edition.

In particular, Iyer’s omission was criticized by the likes of Haddin and former South African skipper AB de Villiers. However, Gavaskar wasn't one bit pleased with the overseas cricketers taking shots at the BCCI selectors and said the selection of the Indian team is none of their business.

"What is baffling is foreigners who have zero stake in Indian cricket, and much less knowledge about it, wading into the debate and adding fuel to the fire. However great they may be as players and however many times they may have been to India, the selection of the Indian team is strictly none of their business," Gavaskar wrote in his column for Sportstar.

Reacting to Gavaskar’s remarks, Haddin said, "I am glad he is listening to the show. We are going worldwide."

Haddin, who has worked with Shreyas Iyer as an assistant coach in the IPL at Punjab Kings, defended his stance on the latter’s snub, saying that it is their job to share opinions on global cricket.

"Our job is to give an opinion on what's topical in world cricket. That's what we do. We coached him (Iyer) in the IPL and I stand by my take. I was shocked that he wasn't in the squad and I am not saying the other players (selected) shouldn't be there. The reason I say that is because just the way he handled our group, he was a great leader and the way he played under pressure, leading from the front. But, yeah, they are obviously going well even with players like him on the sideline," Haddin said on LiSTNR YouTube channel.

India will open their Asia Cup 2025 campaign against UAE at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on September 10.

India squad for Asia Cup 2025: Suryakumar Yadav (C), Shubman Gill (VC), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma (WK), Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Sanju Samson (WK), Harshit Rana, Rinku Singh

Stand-bys: Prasidh Krishna, Washington Sundar, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Yashasvi Jaiswal