Yuvraj Singh Is Rested Not Dropped: MSK Prasad

Chief selector MSK Prasad, on Monday (August 14), said veteran batsman Yuvraj Singh along with some other teammates has not been dropped but rested for the upcoming limited-overs series against Sri Lanka.

The left-handed batsman has been under pressure for quite some time now. While there is absolutely no denying the fact that the World Cup-winning star is of the finest limited-overs batsmen to play for India, he has failed to perform as per his reputation in recent times.  After making a comeback to the ODI team following a three years gap during the series against England earlier this year, he set the stage on fire by slamming a career-best 150 in the second ODI at Cuttack.

However, his form from the Indian Premier League has not been promising. After scoring a whirlwind fifty in the IPL-opener, he failed to carry on the same form and finished the tournament with just 252 runs in 12 matches. He was also in the team for the Champions Trophy and began the tournament with a bang, playing a quickfire knock of 53 runs against Pakistan. However, that knock was followed by scores of 7, 23* and 22.

His poor form continued on the West Indies tour too where he scored 4, 14, and 39 in the first three ODIs before missing the next two games with injury. And while speculations were rife that Yuvraj would be dropped from the team, the selectors confirmed it on Sunday (August 13). However, MSK Prasad clarified that the batsman was not dropped but rested. With the World Cup just a couple of years away, Prasad said that the selectors have started a new policy to test the players. Along with Yuvraj, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav have also been rested.

“We have started a policy where we have identified some set of players who will be considered for the next 4-5 months and we will rotate them,” Prasad said in Pallekele, where India were playing Sri Lanka in the third Test. “After those 4-5 months, we will (know) that these are the certain players who will go on to play the 2019 World Cup.

“In that process, we have started rotating the players and resting some of the main players so we will see how some of these youngsters do, how they will fare in the next coming months or so. And then take a call by the end of the year,” he added.

Meanwhile, the series against Sri Lanka will start with the first of the five ODIs being played on August 20 before the tour concluded with the one-off T20I on September 6.