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India head coach Gautam Gambhir has rubbished speculation that Shreyas Iyer was being side-lined from the ODI set-up despite his brilliant form, saying that the consistent right-hander was always in the “scheme of things” and will be an important player in this month’s Champions Trophy.
Counter-attacking knock
Iyer displayed excellent form during the just-concluded 3-0 ODI series sweep against England, hitting a counter-attacking 36-ball 59 in the opener when India were 19-2 chasing 249 in Nagpur, and scoring 44 and 78 in the next two games.
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Gautam Gambhir. Pic/PTI
After the opening match, he created quite a stir by stating that he got into the side only after Virat Kohli had to sit out of the game because of a sore knee. This led to speculation that he would be dropped for Kohli in the next two games. “He [Iyer] wasn’t supposed to be benched throughout the series. We wanted to give Yashasvi [Jaiswal] a go in the first game and see what he can bring on the table because he was in [a] really good form in Australia,” Gambhir said after the third and final match here on Wednesday.
Iyer was preferred over Jaiswal and Gambhir described him as an important player. “I know that you can’t judge someone [Jaiswal] by one innings, but we always knew Shreyas was going to be an important player.
Rotational policy
“Sometimes when you’ve only got three games, you want to try and rotate your squad. [And] when you’ve got Champions Trophy around the corner, you want to try and maximise these three games and give everyone an opportunity. But Shreyas was always in the scheme of things. It’s good he played all three games,” Gambhir added.
The Champions Trophy gets underway on February 19 with India facing Bangladesh on February 20 in Dubai.
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