New Delhi: BCCI on Sunday announced members of the Indian cricket team for the five-match T20I series against South Africa starting on June 9. While many senior players like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma were rested for the series, two uncapped players were given a chance in the form of Umran Malik and Arshdeep Singh. Regular skipper Rohit Sharma has been rested, and in his place, KL Rahul has been named as the captain, while the team's vice-captain will be Rishabh Pant.
Senior opener Shikhar Dhawan, who has done pretty well for his IPL team Punjab Kings in IPL 2022, was ignored by the Chetan Sharma-led selection committee for the T20I series against South Africa. Ex-India batter Suresh Raina has now come out in support of Dhawan and termed his exclusion from the IND-SA series as disappointing.
Suresh Raina feels that Dhawan will be saddened after him not being considered for selection as the veteran has been scoring runs recently.
"Obviously, Shikhar would have been disappointed. Every captain wants a player like him in the team. He is a fun-loving person who brightens up the environment. And he has always scored runs – be it domestic, international, or T20.
“If you’ve brought Dinesh Karthik back into the team, Shikhar Dhawan deserved a place too. He has performed runs for the last 3-4 years and has scored runs non-stop. Somewhere deep down, he must be sad,” Raina said on the Cricket Live show on Star Sports.
In IPL 2022, Dhawan has scored 460 runs in 14 matches, compared to 587 in the last season and 618 runs a year before that. Nevertheless, Dhawan's name is frequently dropped from the Indian T20 team.