Indian cricket team batter Shreyas Iyer turned down the offer to captain West Zone in the Duleep Trophy, according to a report by Times Of India. The report claimed that Shreyas was offered the captaincy first but after his decision, the selectors handed the responsibility to Shardul Thakur. However, Shreyas did make himself available for the competition. “Yes, it’s true Iyer turned down the offer from the West Zone selection committee to captain the team. After that, the chairman of the committee, Sanjay Patil, who is also the Mumbai chief selector, approached Thakur to lead West Zone, an opportunity that Thakur gladly accepted,” a source told Times Of India.
Some media reports suggested that Shreyas was expecting a call-up for Asia Cup 2025 and wanted to begin his white-ball training with personal coach Pravin Amre.
The Asia Cup 2025 will begin on September 9 and the semifinals of Duleep Trophy will be played from September 4 to 7. If Shreyas was included in the squad, he would have been unavailable for the final stage of the competition. However, the batter did not find a place in the 15-man squad.
Meanwhile, former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar expressed his feelings on batter Shreyas Iyer’s omission from the upcoming Asia Cup squad, saying that it is “shocking” not to include him.
Iyer, who led Punjab Kings (PBKS) to their first Indian Premier League (IPL) finals in a decade with his fiery leadership and batting, was one of the notable omissions from the Asia Cup squad, a move which has attracted plenty of criticism from fans and ex-cricketers alike.
Speaking on his social media handle, Instagram, Manjrekar said, “Shreyas Iyer not making India’s T20 squad for the Asia Cup is just shocking. This is a guy who was left out of the Indian team for the right reason because they felt he wasn’t committing himself as much to domestic cricket. But it had the desired effect on Shreyas Iyer: when he came back again in the England at-home ODI series, the way he batted, you could see that he was just batting like he had never batted before.”
“He didn’t put a foot wrong in that comeback series and then carried that form into IPL cricket. I don’t think any batter has had that kind of form throughout the IPL season, with the average over 50, strike rate over 170, and being the game-changer in the side with the bat. And he gets rewarded with non-selection,” he added.
(With ANI inputs)