What A Shame, Says Gautam Gambhir On Ambati Rayudu's Retirement

Former India batsman has come down hard on the Indian selectors after Ambati Rayudu’s sudden retirement from international cricket. Rayudu, on Wednesday, sprung a huge surprise by bringing down curtains on his international career which has been in the news for all the wrong reasons in recent times.

Read More: Must Be Very Painful For Ambati Rayudu After World Cup Snub – Virender Sehwag

The Indian selectors surprisingly ignored Rayudu from the World Cup squad and instead picked Vijay Shankar. Rayudu was widely seen as India’s No 4 batsman at the World Cup. However, the selectors instead went for Shankar who made his debut in January this year. Rayudu did have a poor home series against Australia but overall he had done reasonably well since returning to the team last year.

Also Read: Ambati Rayudu You Are A Top Man, Says Virat Kohli

And as if that snub was not enough, the selectors did not even name him in the squad after India lost two players due to injury. Instead, the MSK Prasad-led panel picked Rishabh Pant and Mayank Agarwal to replace Shikhar Dhawan and Vijay Shankar respectively. What made everyone more surprised was that Rayudu was in the standby list while uncapped Agarwal was nowhere in contention for the World Cup spot.

And Gautam Gambhir could not hold back his frustration at the turn of events and slammed the selectors. The former India batsman, who is known for his outspoken nature, took to Twitter to question the selectors’ credentials and called Rayudu’s retirement a shame, writing:

“What surprises me most is that the entire @BCCI current selection panel had an unfulfilled career themselves!!!Even then they could not give a fair run to talent like @RayuduAmbati. What a shame!!! While it’s important to win titles, guess it’s more important to have a heart.”

What surprises me most is that the entire @BCCI current selection panel had an unfulfilled career themselves!!!Even then they could not give a fair run to talent like @RayuduAmbati. What a shame!!! While it’s important to win titles, guess it’s more important to have a heart.

— Gautam Gambhir (@GautamGambhir) July 3, 2019

Overall, Rayudu represented India in 50 ODIs. He scored 1694 runs at an average of 47.05 with a top score of 124*. He has hit three centuries and 10 fifties and has a strike rate of 79.04. In the five T20Is innings that he has played, he has scored 42 runs at an average of 10.50.

Read More: Can Understand The Pain Of Ambati Rayudu – VVS Laxman