3 Players who underperformed in IPL 2022 but got a chance in India's T20I squad for South Africa series

India’s squad for the upcoming five-match T20I series against South Africa was announced on Sunday (May 22). The 17-member squad included several performers from the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL). With the tournament expanding to 10 teams, it presented opportunities to a lot of star players to showcase their skills.

With the senior players rested, the selectors awarded a place on the national side to the few players in the IPL 2022 while a few others were retained. KL Rahul was named captain and Rishabh Pant the vice-captain of the side even as the players who underperformed were also selected in the Indian team for the series. 

Here we bring you three players who were lucky to get picked in India squad despite not doing well in IPL 2022:

1. Ruturaj Gaikwad

The Chennai Super Kings opener, Ruturaj Gaikwad, was preferred in India’s T20I squad even after a below-average IPL 2022. Ruturaj probably had his worst IPL season as he averaged only 26.29 this season. This was by far the lowest Ruturaj has ever averaged in his three-year IPL career so far. In 2021, he averaged a staggering 45.35, scoring 635 runs in 16 innings, and 51.01 in 2020, when he scored 204 runs in six innings.

In fact, Ruturaj has barely performed even in the three odd opportunities he has got in the blue jersey for India. Ruturaj averages just 13 in three innings and has scored 39 runs at a strike rate of just 108.33. In the absence of Rohit, Ruturaj will probably get a longer rope in the South Africa series, which will be a make or break series for the opener.

In IPL 2022, a few of the other free-flowing Indian batters like Rahul Tripathi and Prithvi Shaw have batted out of their skin at mind-boggling strike rates and have still missed out on the T20 squad. Ruturaj Gaikwad would consider himself lucky to still find his place in India’s T20 format in spite of his most disappointing IPL season. As a result, it will be interesting to see how Ruturaj fares against Temba Bavuma’s Proteas.