On March 24, after a meeting, the Indian selection committee announced an 18-man squad for India’s five-Test tour of England. Several major decisions are taken, such as the appointment of Shubman Gill as the new captain and Rishabh Pant being named the vice-captain. Meanwhile, following India’s poor performances in the last home Test series against New Zealand and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia, a few players have been dropped from the team — one of them being Sarfaraz Khan.
Sarfaraz Khan had been a part of India’s Test team since January 2024. During this period, he played six Test matches and scored 371 runs at an average of 37. His exclusion comes as a surprising decision because he had made a promising start to his Test career and maintained a healthy strike rate of 75, which is a positive sign in the modern era of Test cricket. Moreover, he didn’t feature in any match during the BGT series, so dropping him straight from the bench is a decision that many are finding hard to digest.
Is Sarfaraz Khan dropped because of media leaks?
However, following the BGT series, several reports surfaced suggesting that Gautam Gambhir was upset with Sarfaraz Khan for leaking dressing room conversations to the media. Reportedly, after India’s loss in the MCG Test, Gambhir gave a fiery speech in the dressing room expressing his displeasure with the team’s performance.
But it was said that these internal details were leaked to the media by Sarfaraz Khan, which led head coach Gambhir to complain to the BCCI. Since then, there had been speculations about Sarfaraz being dropped from the team.
However, it is not clear whether the selectors dropped the Mumbai-born batter because of this reason. Chief selector Ajit Agarkar cited Sarfaraz’s lack of runs after his century as the reason behind his exclusion.
In the press conference, Agarkar said, “Sometimes you just have to make good decisions. Sarfaraz, I know he got a 100 in the first Test (vs New Zealand) and then didn’t get runs. Sometimes it’s decisions the team management takes. Whether it’s fair on somebody or unfair on someone, those are the choices that you make in the best interest of the team.”
