The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Friday announced the squad for the upcoming World Test Championship final and the following the five-match Test series against England. The squad mostly consist of players who were a part of the Test series against England at home, but there were a couple of deserving cricketers who failed to make a cut.
Virat Kohli & Co will play the World Test Championship final against New Zealand starting from June 18 at the Rose Bowl in Southampton. This will be followed by the five-match series against England starting from August 4 at Nottingham.
The likes of Shubman Gill, Hanuma Vihari, Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Mohammed Siraj, and Umesh Yadav are some notable players who have managed to make it to the squad. However, there are a couple of notable mentions who failed to grab a ticket for the flight to the UK.
We take a look at 3 deserving players who failed to make the cut for the ICC World Test Championship final squad:
Prithvi Shaw
The youngster from Mumbai was dropped from the playing XI after his poor returns in the first Test against Australia last year. A lot was talked about his faulty technique and head falling over his shoulder resulting in a big gap between his bat and pad. Prithvi Shaw took it on the chin and worked tirelessly during the rest of the tour and after traveling back to India.
And the result was there to see. The right-handed batter smacked 827 runs in the Vijay Hazare Trophy at a staggering average of over 150 leading to IPL 2021. Prithvi continued his brilliant form for Delhi Capitals playing some breathtaking knocks for his franchise where he scored 308 runs from eight outings. He got out cheaply on two occasions and incidentally, Delhi lost both of those games. On the back of his brilliant show, many expected Prithvi Shaw to earn a call back to the Test squad. But surprisingly, he was left out.
Shaw’s exclusion grabbed a lot of eyeballs and many former cricketers had backed him to earn a recall.
