Rohit Sharma ignored for India ‘A’ squad for Australia ‘A’ series

Rohit Sharma had a memorable debut in Test cricket in 2013 when he slammed two consecutive hundreds in his first two innings. Five years since the dream debut, the 31-year-old batsman’s journey in Test cricket has only seen a slide. Now, with the dashing batsman getting ignored for a berth in India ‘A’ squad for two four-day games against Australia ‘A’, his journey in the longest format might have met its end.

That the selectors are willing to look ahead of Sharma is evident from the fact that he is being repeatedly overlooked for the longer form of cricket. He did not find a place in the Test series in England even after slamming centuries in the T20I and ODI series. He was also ignored for the two-game series that India ‘A’ played against South Africa ‘A’ at home recently. Sharma is not even in any Duleep Trophy squad either.

Sharma played his last Test against SA earlier this year

The Mumbai-batsman was preferred ahead of vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane in the first two Tests against South Africa in the away series played earlier this year. The move backlashed as Sharma failed to score even a fifty in four innings that he played. He was dropped for the third Test and also was not considered for the one-off Test against debutantes Afghanistan at home in June.

And with more youngsters getting their Test calls (Prithvi Shaw and Hanuma Vihari were included for the final two Tests against England), the road for Sharma might be all but over. Sharma has played 25 Tests, scoring 1,479 runs at an average of 39.97.

He has three hundreds in the longest format which means after the two consecutive tons early on, he has scored just one more hundred in the next 41 innings. His highest score in Test is 177 which he scored in his debut match against the Windies in Kolkata on debut.

The India ‘A’ squad 

Shreyas Iyer (captain), KS Bharat (wicket-keeper), Shubman Gill, Mayank Agarwal, R Samarth, A Easwaran, Ankit Bawne, Shahbaz Nadeem, K Gowtham, Rajneesh Gurbani, Kuldeep Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Mohammed Siraj and Ankit Rajpoot.

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