Does The Latest Snub Indicate End Of Road For Yuvraj Singh And Suresh Raina?

Hopes were high that Yuvraj Singh would return to the One-Day International team for the upcoming series against Australia when chief selector MSK Prasad had claimed that the veteran batsman was rested not dropped for the recently-concluded series against Sri Lanka.

“Yuvraj has been rested,” Prasad had said. “Doors are never closed on anybody. Everybody has got a right to play cricket. It’s their passion. They are chasing their passion. Regarding selection, we try to select the best possible team.”

However, it seems like the comments were irrelevant from Prasad and were perhaps made by him to calm down the situation as Yuvraj has now been dropped from the squad for the Australia series. The latest snub looks like a body blow to Yuvraj’s international career which was revived for a while after his impressive performance in his comeback series against England earlier this year.

The signs were very much clear that the team management had given up on Yuvraj when he was dropped for the Sri Lanka series but Prasad’s comment just complicated the matters for a while. The signs, nevertheless, became further clear when he was not included in any of the three squads for the ongoing Duleep Trophy and the upcoming warm-up game against Australia. The snubs indicated that Yuvraj was not even among country’s top 74 cricketers- Fifteen of which played during the Sri Lanka series, 45 are playing the Duleep Trophy and the remaining 14 from the squad for the warm-up game.

And the recent setback is a stark reminder that the southpaw has finally run out of time and he has only himself to blame for the unfortunate situation.  The World Cup-winning star was not even in the scheme of things when he returned to the team earlier this year after a three-year hiatus and while he made a sensational comeback, scoring a career-best 150, things did not pan out on expected lines thereafter. A quickfire fifty against Champions Trophy gave him some more time to play but poor performances in the remainder of the tournament and a disastrous outing in West Indies turned out to be a huge setback for him.

With the team now experimenting with KL Rahul, Manish Pandey and Ajinkya Rahane, it is very much clear that the team management is now looking beyond the ageing star whose career is now looking as good as over.

End of road for Suresh Raina too:

Another player whose career is now under question is Suresh Raina. The southpaw has not played an ODI since October 2015 but was backed to make a comeback in the team after an impressive outing in this year’s Indian Premier League. And although he made it to the standby list for the Champions Trophy, it is now clear that he does not feature prominently in the selectors’ plans.

Moreover, his poor fitness and recent form has only made things tougher for him. The team is now trying out new set of players and if they manage to cement their place in the team, it is highly unlikely that the left-handed batsman would return to the team.