Former Team India opener Sadagoppan Ramesh questioned the exclusion of RCB captain Rajat Patidar from the Indian T20I squad for the upcoming Ireland and England tours as well.
However, Patidar helped RCB win their second title in a row in IPL 2026. He also scored 501 runs at an average of almost 42 and a strike rate of 192.69 in 15 matches as well.
Talking about this, Ramesh said on his Instagram handle: “Shreyas Iyer has been made the T20I captain based on his IPL showing. But that raises the question on why there is no one in the T20I side from the two-time defending champions RCB. It is high time Rajat Patidar atleast gets a look in as a player in the T20I squad. If not, atleast for the India A tours, Patidar must be considered as captain.”
However, Sadagoppan Ramesh believes another RCB batter, Devdutt Padikkal, has done well in tests, with Team India head coach Gautam Gambhir preferring Sai Sudharsan for the No.3 role. Padikkal was part of the team for the recent one-off Test against Afghanistan but did not play.
“Giving Sai opportunities is great, but Padikkal should be given just as much. Gambhir justified favoring Sai over Padikkal by saying Sai had limited chances in England, with the conditions in England being tough. But Sai actually played 6 out of the 10 innings in England. Meanwhile, when Padikkal last played in Australia, he got only two out of 10 innings,” said Ramesh.
“So it is clear Padikkal has got lesser opportunities compared to Sai. Gambhir’s next point for favoring Sai was the tougher conditions in England. Yet, India’s average score in the England series was 381 with 12 individual centuries. But the series in Australia, the average score for India was only 213 with just three centuries. So it is clear Padikkal has also played in tougher conditions than Sai,” he concluded.
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