Shreyas Iyer's absence from the Asia Cup 2025 squad has created a massive debate in the Indian cricket with the star batter being unlucky despite enjoying one of his most prolific seasons in franchise cricket.

Shreyas has been in remarkable form with the bat and had a memorable outing in the IPL 2025 with the Punjab Kings. The skipper in his maiden season with the franchise led from the front and scored 604 runs in 17 matches, averaging 50.33 with a staggering strike rate of 175. He took the Punjab Kings to the final, which they lost against RCB.

The 30-year-old was also India's top run-getter in the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 and has been consistent in domestic cricket over the past few months with Mumbai. Amid the ongoing controversy, the former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar came up with his opinion on the matter, slamming the BCCI selectors for rewarding players for performances in one format while ignoring specialists in another.

"It’s something I’ve seen over the years, not just recently: this tendency of selectors to pick a player based on performances in one format, where that person excelled, and then picking him for another format. When I see a player getting rewarded for his Test match performances by being placed in the T20 side, I just find that devoid of cricketing logic. It just doesn’t make any sense," Sanjay Manjrekar said on Instagram.

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"Shreyas Iyer not making this T20 squad of India 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 at-home ODI series against England, the way he batted, you could see that he was just batting like he had never batted before."

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He went on to recall how Iyer had previously been dropped from the Indian setup due to concerns about his commitment to domestic cricket. With Iyer having incredible recent numbers, Manjrekar mentioned that very few batters have managed to combine a strike rate of over 170 with an average above 50 across an entire season.

"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 an average over 50, a strike rate over 170, and being the game-changer in the side with the bat. And he gets rewarded with non-selection," he said.

"So, when you do that to a player who has put in one of the best performances ever in the last few months in a format for which the Indian team is being selected, and you leave him out of that format, that’s for a guy who has excelled in a completely different format: Test cricket. Pick a guy who’s done well in T20 cricket, and not just because somebody has done so well in Test cricket gets rewarded with a T20 place, especially at the cost of somebody like Shreyas Iyer," he added.