5 Cricketers who were added to the squad but never played for team India

In a country where there are millions of people who dream of representing their country at the highest level, only a few manage to come close to achieving their goal. India has produced plenty of talented cricketers throughout its history, with the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar, Virat Kohli and Rahul Dravid establishing themselves as the best of the lot.

India’s U19 team, ‘A’ team and the IPL have all played a major role in increasing India’s talent pool. While the increasing talent pool is great for the Indian team in general, it is only going to become tougher for individuals to break into the squad. There are only 11 places in the team, 4 more on the bench and another 20-25 fringe players, and that’s that.

The remaining players will have to toil it out and hope that there’s an opening somewhere down the line. Getting into the 15-man squad is a great achievement and in most cases it pretty much guarantees a national cap. However, there have been a few players who didn’t make their debut despite being a part of the squad.

5 Cricketers who were added to the squad but never played for team India

5. Dheeraj Jadhav

Dheeraj Jadhav can count himself to be very unlucky to have legendary players like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Virender Sehwag as his main competitors in his prime. The Maharashtra-born batsman scored a staggering 1066 in just 12 innings in the 03/04 Ranji Trophy campaign and forced himself into national contention.

His amazing form just before the series against Australia at home in 2004 even earned him a callup to the squad for the 4^th test match, but he couldn’t break into the playing XI as it was Gautam Gambhir who was handed a debut. Jadhav didn’t get a callup after this even though he was a consistent performer at the domestic level.

The former opening batsman scored 7679 runs in 175 first class innings at an average of 50.85 and in his List A career, he managed to score 2075 runs in 52 innings at an average of 43.22. With such impressive stats it’s a shame, that he couldn’t even play a single game for India.