Ranji Trophy performances should be the first criteria for Test selections: Irfan Pathan

BCCI announced squads for the first two Tests of the four-match series against Australia recently. While Suryakumar Yadav made it to the Test squad, not for the first time, the ever-consistent Sarfaraz Khan couldn't make the cut despite banging the door with his brilliant performances in the Ranji Trophy for the last couple of seasons. Moreover, even Ishan Kishan also made it to the squad with Rishabh Pant also ruled out of action after his recent accident.

Former India cricketer Irfan Pathan has come down hard at the selections made for the upcoming Test series against Australia. He took to Twitter to express his views after the Test squad was announced and made it clear that the players should be picked purely on the basis of performances in Ranji Trophy.

"Ranji Trophy performances should be the first criteria for Test selections," Irfan Pathan's tweet read.

Ranji trophy performances should be the first criteria for test selections!

— Irfan Pathan (@IrfanPathan) January 14, 2023

Aakash Chopra also not happy with Sarfaraz Khan's exclusion

Meanwhile, another former India cricketer Aakash Chopra is not happy with Sarfaraz Khan not making it to the India Test squad for Australia series. He also reckoned that the Mumbai batter might feel cheated having scored truckload of runs in domestic cricket. For the unversed, Sarfaraz scored 928 runs at an average of 154.66 in 2019-20 season followed by 982 runs at an average of 122.75 in 2021-22 season.

In the ongoing Ranji Trophy season, Sarfaraz has amassed 431 runs so far at an average of almost 108. "Sarfaraz's name is still not there. He feels he got cheated because his name should probably have come. Bumrah is still not there. That's another news but I am more concerned that Sarfaraz is not there," Aakash Chopra said on his Youtube channel.

While Suryakumar Yadav's selection is a welcome change in the Indian Test squad, he didn't play first-class cricket for three years until he played a game in December 2022. In that Ranji Trophy game, Surya ended up smashing a quickfire 90 off 80 deliveries.