India's Squad For Asia Cup 2025: Ex-India head coach Abhishek Nayar has slammed the selectors for not including Shreyas Iyer in India's squad for Asia Cup 2025 and reckoned that his inclusion, even from the stand-by players list, has raised questions about how the team is selected. During an interaction on Star Sports, Nayar has shown his disappointment with Iyer getting snubbed, especially since he had performed brilliantly during IPL in the last few seasons.

Post leading KKR to their third IPL title last year, Iyer then led the Punjab-based franchise from the front and helped them qualify for the summit clash for the first time in the last 10 years, where he had also performed consistently as a batter.

"I wanted to ask that question - how is he not even in the reserves if he's such a strong contender? Sometimes, selection meetings can be quite interesting, and the discussions even more so. But I genuinely can't understand what justification there could be for not including Shreyas Iyer in a 20-member squad," Nayar was quoted as saying on Star Sports.

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Shreyas last represented the country way back in December 2023, where he had smashed a fifty against Australia. And after that, he wasn't included in the T20I team and also wasn't included in India's 2024 T20 World Cup team, and now has been snubbed from the Asia Cup team, even though he had performed brilliantly in domestic tournaments and had also proved his leadership skills.

Nayar did admit that a player is selected on a lot of factors, but revealed that personal choices might have affected Iyer's exclusion.

"Any selection, after a while, comes down to who you prefer a little more than the other. In that regard, maybe Shreyas Iyer is not liked as much as someone else. Maybe," he added.

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Ajit Agarkar also talked about this issue after revealing the team and said that Iyer's exclusion wasn't due to his fault.

"With regards to Shreyas, there's no fault of his - nor is it ours. We can only pick 15, and at the moment, he might have to wait for his chance," Agarkar told reporters during the press conference.

Agarkar also reacted to Yashasvi Jaiswal getting dropped and revealed that, owing to Abhishek Sharma's recent form and with his ability to bowl as well, it helped him get an upper edge against Jaiswal. But no logical reasoning was given in Iyer's situation, and thus left the topic debatable.

India's Asia Cup T20 Squad: Suryakumar Yadav (c), Shubman Gill (vc), Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah.