"Cannot find answer to Sarfaraz Khan's non-selection" - Former India spinner's big statement on batter's exclusion for South Africa series

India will host South Africa for a home Test series beginning in November this year. Ahead of the same, the A team will play two games against South Africa A from October 30. As the squad was announced, Sarfaraz Khan was surprisingly left out.

Reacting to the same, former India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin expressed his disappointment at Sarfaraz missing out. He raised certain questions regarding the selection and communication to the players. Ashwin reckoned that if the selectors felt that they had seen enough of Sarfaraz, then many other such players in the squad had been seen enough as well.

The spin legend failed to understand the reason behind Sarfaraz not being picked. He reflected that the right-hander had scored runs and worked on his fitness as well.

"I cannot find an answer to Sarfaraz Khan's non-selection. I am very sad and sorry for him. He has reduced his weight, has scored runs. I really feel sorry for him. This sort of non-selection leads him to think that he has been seen enough and is not wanted. Where will he perform? The doors have been shut," he said on 'Ash ki Baat'.

Ashwin also highlighted a glaring issue with regard to selection in Indian cricket. He pointed out how Sai Sudharsan made it to the side ahead of Abhimanyu Easwaran due to his impressive performances in the IPL as well. Susharsan scored 759 runs in IPL 2025 and has played five Tests so far.

"IPL has a lot of advantages and disadvantages. See the case of Sai Sudharsan. He is a fabulous player. But how did he leapfrog Abhimanyu Easwaran? His performance in a tournament for 2-3 months has overshadowed the performance that Easwaran has put through the first-class season. Rewarding domestic performers is always up to the selectors. This is happening only because that player has done well in the IPL. Selectors need to see whether they want to reward first-class performances or IPL performances."

Easwaran has played 106 first-class matches and has scored 8025 runs with 27 hundreds. He has been travelling with the Indian team for a while now but has yet to make his Test debut.

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Ashwin's huge advise to Abhimanyu Easwaran on making India debut

Building on the same point of performing in the IPL, Ashwin advised Abhimanyu Easwaran to play the T20 format and score runs in the IPL. He stated that it could be the only way for him to make it to the Indian team.

"If I was Easwaran, I will tell him to somehow find a play to play the T20 format, to go score 400 runs in an IPL season so that he can also come in. It is a sad state. It is quite unfortunate for some of these stalwarts of red ball cricket. They do not get enough recognition," he said.

Easwaran has played 34 T20s in his career so far. He has scored 976 runs at an average of 37.53 with a strike-rate of 128.59. The right-hander has a hundred and five half-centuries in the format.

However, he last played T20 cricket in 2023. Since then, he has only been playing List-A and first-class cricket. Easwaran has not played a single game in the IPL either.

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Edited by Rishab Vm